Washington, DC – The administration of United States President Donald Trump is entering the latest round of talks with Iran with a list of maximalist demands, even as their wider strategy remains unclear, analysts have told media.
The talks in Muscat, Oman, on Friday are the first since the US attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. They mark the latest chapter in US-Iran relations during Trump’s second term, which initially saw the president seek a new agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, before those talks were derailed by Israel’s 12-day war and the subsequent US strikes.
Recent months have seen deadly anti-government protests spread across Iran as Trump repeatedly threatened more US military intervention and tightened crippling sanctions.
The US president has since surged a multibillion-dollar “armada” of US military assets off the coast of Iran, following a playbook that preceded both the previous strikes on Iran as well as the US abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on January 3.
“I think that the US thinks that Iran is weakened, so this is the opportune time for going in with maximalist demands to get the most concessions that they can get,” Sina Azodi, the director of Middle East Studies at George Washington University in Washington, DC, told media.
Those demands include not only staunching Iran’s nuclear programme, but seeking limits on its ballistic missile programme and ending support for so-called regional “proxies”. Reports have indicated the expanded agenda pushed by the Trump administration repeatedly threatened to derail the talks, which are set to include Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said the US was “ready for talks”.
“In order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include the range of their ballistic missiles, their sponsorship of terror organisations, and the treatment of their own people,” Rubio told reporters.
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