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12-02-2026
TEHRAN/ MUSCAT: Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has met with Oman’s ruler, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, in the wake of nuclear talks held in the country between Tehran and Washington, Omani state media reported.
The two leaders “discussed the latest developments in the Iranian-American negotiations”, the official Oman News Agency reported on Tuesday.
They also explored “ways to reach a balanced and just agreement between the two sides, and emphasised the importance of returning to the table of dialogue and negotiation”, the Omani agency said.
Larijani, a close adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also due to meet Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, the chief intermediary in the US-Iran talks.
The Iranian state-run IRNA news agency said “discussions over the latest regional and international developments” were on the agenda for Larijani’s visit to Muscat, “as well as ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation between Iran and Oman”.
Reporting from Tehran, journalist Tohid Asadi said some analysts were interpreting the visit, on the back of the recent talks in the country, “as a positive sign indicating a sort of progress” in efforts to advance the negotiations.
Oman hosted talks on Iran’s nuclear program last week aimed at avoiding a conflict between Tehran and Washington, amid surging tensions and a growing US military build-up in the region.
It was an outcome of concerted diplomatic efforts in the region to avert a conflict. A second round of talks has been confirmed, but a date has not been announced.
IRNA reported on Tuesday that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had held a series of phone calls with his counterparts in Turkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to brief them on the latest developments in the negotiations with Washington in Muscat.
At a news briefing on Tuesday, Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Larijani’s visit was part of regional consultations in line with Tehran’s policy of strengthening relations with neighboring countries, and had been planned in advance.
Regarding the negotiations with the US, Baghaei said Washington “must act independently, free from the destructive pressures being exerted that harm the region and American interests”.
He urged the US to resist Israeli pressure over the nuclear issue, saying that “one of the United States’ problems in the region is its subservience to the demands of the Zionist entity, which is the primary factor destabilizing security in the region”.
Baghaei said that after the collapse of the diplomatic process last year, it was “unrealistic to expect detailed discussions in the very first meeting”.
“The Muscat meeting itself was brief, lasting about half a day, and from our perspective was mainly aimed at assessing the other side’s seriousness and exploring how the process might proceed,” he said.
The focus, he said, had been on general principles and Iran’s “core positions” were clear, “securing the Iranian people’s interests based on international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy”.
He added that European countries had “missed past opportunities to play a constructive role and failed to act independently or positively in diplomatic processes, choosing instead to follow others and making serious miscalculations”.
He said recent moves by the European Union to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization were “both illegal and a strategic mistake”. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
