talks

SWIFTIES assemble! Your favourite superstar Taylor could be in line to make a very special surprise appearance at next week’s Brit Awards.

Right now, there is a bit of a blank space when it comes to the exact details of her possible attendance at the celebrations.

In fact, no one seems to know what will happen on the night.

I can exclusively reveal, though, that Tay, along with an enormous entourage of more than 20 people, secretly landed in the UK this week.

I’m told they’re going to be visiting Manchester next week — the location for this year’s Brits.

Their schedule then sees them leaving the UK a week on Monday — just a couple of days after the ceremony.

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My music industry mole said: “Taylor is hiding out in London at the moment and is scheduled to visit Manchester, which seems like she could be lined up for a surprise appearance at the Brit Awards.

“Taylor was handed the Global Icon Award at the ceremony back in 2021 and has a huge amount of respect for the Brits. She loves it.

“Brits bosses are trying to keep everything under lock and key, but it feels too much like a coincidence that Taylor is secretly in the UK at the exact time of the Brits.

“The fact her team are all heading home the Monday after the ceremony is fishy. Manchester is an amazing city, but Taylor wouldn’t just be coming to look at the cathedral and the Etihad, would she?”

As lovely as those landmarks are, I doubt it.

If Tay is at the city’s Co-op Live arena on February 28, I think it could be the greatest coup for the Brits. She always delivers a show, on and off the stage.

In 2015, when I was working for Heat magazine, I exclusively revealed that Taylor had hooked up with Calvin Harris at an after-party, with the pair dating for a year.

And in 2021, when she received the Global Icon Award while we were mired in Covid restrictions, she had a very safe knees-up with pals including Haim and Olivia Rodrigo.

This time around, I know Manchester is ready for one massive party and having Taylor front and centre would be phenomenal.

And given her ex Harry Styles is also on the bill, I think it could be a very exciting night.

…AND SHE’S No1 AGAIN

TAYLOR has been named the biggest-selling artist globally of 2025 – the fourth year in a row that she’s topped the list.

The singer, who also took the title in 2014, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024, triumphed thanks to the release of her 12th album, The Life Of A Showgirl, in October.

She is just ahead of K-pop group Stray Kids, who have become megastars around the world, despite not having chart success in the UK.

The list has been compiled by the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, which compiles streaming, downloads and physical formats in every country for its global artist chart.

The biggest gainer was Super Bowl headliner Bad Bunny, who hopped up from No20 in 2024 to No5, while country star Morgan Wallen rose from No13 to No7.

And there was good news for Lady Gaga.

She has re-entered the list at No10 for the first time since 2020, following the release of her album Mayhem.

JADE HAS A LITTLE HELPER IN GROOT

JADE THIRLWALL got comfort from a surprising source after stepping away from her musical roots when Little Mix went on hiatus in 2021.

She admitted walking around with a teddy version of Groot – the tree-like character from Guardians Of The Galaxy – on her shoulder as she pined for her girlband pals.

On new podcast By The Way  . . . With Harriet Rose, out today, Jade said: “Little Mix, that was my life. I’m very career driven and poured everything into Little Mix.

“So when that kind of stopped, that was a massive shock to the system. I had a little bit of a mini menty-b [mental breakdown].

“I had a little teddy of Groot and started wearing it on my shoulder all the time. It was really weird.

“After Little Mix, I went on holiday with my friends and they were like, ‘Why do you keep wearing Groot on your shoulder?’. I think I was replacing the girls with Groot.

“My friends were like, ‘I think it’s time to stop wearing Groot’.”

MILEY CYRUS will take part in a special for Disney+ to mark the 20th anniversary of her breakout show Hannah Montana.

In the one-off, which is to be screened on March 24, she will be interviewed by podcaster Alex Cooper in front of a live studio audience to look back at the series.

Miley said: “This ‘Hannahversary’ is my way of celebrating and thanking the fans who’ve stood by me for 20 years.”

YELL OF A LOOK, PRIYANKA

PRIYANKA CHOPRA spread some joy in this bright yellow outfit ahead of the premiere for her new movie The Bluff.

She wore the thigh-high dress at a photocall before changing into a leather look for the Los Angeles launch of the action thriller on Tuesday night.

The actress was supported on the red carpet by her husband Nick Jonas, who she grabbed by the cheeks while leaning in for a kiss, inset.

Nick released his fifth solo album Sunday Best earlier this month, but it failed to crack the charts.

Here’s hoping her movie fares better.

SHAUN BLASTS TRUMP

US President Donald Trump winds up many people – and Shaun Ryder is no exception.

The Happy Mondays frontman has channelled that into music and written his angriest ever song about Donald, who he branded “orange, fat and bloated”.

In an exclusive chat about their new album, Shaun told me: “Trump keeps popping up.

“There’s plenty on that f***ing orange, motherf***ing waste of space.

“Although I’ve not been mentioning his name, some songs are definitely influenced by that w***er. I f***ing hate him.

“He’s just a p**ck. You might as well have me and Bez up there saying s**t. We have probably got more of a clue than he has.

“I just can’t stand the f***ing man. You can see how it’s affecting me lyrically. I wrote one song that goes, ‘You orange, fat, bloated ****! You f***ing lying, f***ing delusional t**t!’ How’s that for a chorus?”

Brilliant, Shaun.

He also takes a pop at Nigel Farage on the record and said: “Reform, f*** me.

“Every time it gets a bit tough and people haven’t got jobs, it’s ‘blame f***ing immigrants, blame this’,’ it never changes. “That’s the f***ing world, the world is on a loop.

“We never seem to learn f*** all about wars or anything.”

RITA’S TIPS TO BRUSH OFF TROLLS

RITA ORA has advice for ignoring online trolls who target her and other celebs.

The Anywhere singer recites mantras to get into a good headspace.

Rita has teamed up with tech company Meta for a video series on Instagram in a bid to help others.

She said: “You can’t be afraid of something you can’t control.

“You can’t control it, stop thinking about it. These are the mantras I say to myself every day in the mirror.”

Rita added: “Comments can cut. Every tiny thing gets magnified and everyone can see through the walls.

“Someone in the public eye may have more people looking at them but the walls are just as fragile. The doubts are really what helps me make great songs though.”

Personally, I just like to laugh at the trolls, who are always sad, decrepit nobodies, who should get off the internet and find a job.

ACTOR Daniel Radcliffe does not want the cast of the new Harry Potter HBO TV show to be compared to those in the original movies.

He was boy wizard Harry on film, but that role is now Dominic McLaughlin’s.

Daniel said: “Just let them get on with it, it’s going to be a new, different thing.

“I’m sure Dominic is going to be better than me.”

ROB HITS WIG TIME

ROBERT PATTINSON is unrecognisable in this blond wig as he sits on the floor holding a ciggie.

The actor posed for Interview magazine, in which he and his The Drama co-star Zendaya interviewed each other.

Even she was puzzled about the snaps, saying: “The theme was, I don’t know.”

Rob revealed he doesn’t feel welcome in Hollywood, admitting: “I’m never really allowed in. I’m always knocking at the door, like, ‘Hey, guys. Where the party at?’

“And everyone just gets younger and younger.”

“The talks have not broken down, but they have not really yielded any results.” Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid explains what happened—and what didn’t—at the third round of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

One week ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, United States-led peace talks in Geneva ended for the day earlier than scheduled on Wednesday.

The talks, which are being mediated by Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, are just the latest of a number of attempts to end the deadliest fighting in Europe since World War II – and none have reached a breakthrough.

During his presidential campaign in 2024, Trump claimed repeatedly that he would broker a ceasefire in Ukraine within “24 hours”. However, he has been unable to fulfil this promise.

Here is a timeline of the mediation efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, which has killed more than a million people, as it heads towards its fifth year.

February 28, 2022 – direct talks

The first ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine took place just four days after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The meeting lasted about five hours, and featured high-level officials, but with diametrically opposing goals. Nothing came of their talks.

Then, the two sides held three rounds of direct talks in Belarus, ending on March 7, but, again, nothing was agreed.

March-April 2022 – regional talks in Antalya

On March 10, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia, Dmytro Kuleba and Sergey Lavrov, met for the first time since the war started, on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkiye.

A second meeting between senior leaders in Istanbul towards the end of the month failed to secure a ceasefire.

Then, the withdrawal of Russian forces in early April from parts of Ukraine revealed evidence of massacres committed against the Ukrainian civilian population in Bucha and Irpin near Kyiv, in northern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this would make negotiations much more difficult, but that it was necessary to persist with the dialogue. Russian President Vladimir Putin later declared the negotiations were at a “dead end” as a result of Ukraine’s allegations of war crimes.

July 2022 – Black Sea Grain Initiative, Istanbul

In July 2022, the Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed by Ukraine and Russia with Turkiye and the United Nations in Istanbul. It was the most significant diplomatic breakthrough for the first year of the war.

The agreement aimed to prevent a global food crisis by designating a safe maritime humanitarian corridor through the Black Sea for cargoes of millions of tons of grain stuck in Ukrainian ports.

November 2022 – Ukraine’s peace plan

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy presented a 10-point peace proposal at the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Indonesia, within which he called for Russia’s withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory as well as measures to ensure radiation and nuclear safety, food security, and protection for Ukraine’s grain exports.

He also demanded energy security and the release of all Ukrainian prisoners and deportees, including war prisoners and children deported to Russia.

Russia rejected Zelenskyy’s peace proposal, reiterating that it would not give up any territory it had taken by force, which stood at about one-fifth of Ukraine by then.

February 2023 – China’s peace plan

China proposed a 12-point peace plan calling for a ceasefire and the end of “unilateral sanctions” that had been imposed by Western nations on Russia. Beijing urged both sides to resume talks on the basis that “the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld”.

The proposal was criticised by Western allies of Kyiv for not acknowledging “Russia’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty”.

June 2023 – Africa’s peace plan

In June 2023, a high-level delegation of African leaders, led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and including the presidents of Senegal and Zambia, visited both Kyiv and St Petersburg to present a 10-point plan focusing on de-escalation and grain exports.

Analysts said it was driven largely by the war’s impact on African food security and fertiliser prices.

But Ukrainian President Zelenskyy rejected the call for “de-escalation”, arguing that a ceasefire without a Russian withdrawal would simply “freeze” the war.

The following month, President Putin pulled Russia out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

August 2023 – Jeddah summit

Saudi Arabia hosted representatives from 40 countries to discuss Zelenskyy’s “Peace Formula”, but no final agreement or joint statement was reached.

In a major surprise, Beijing sent its special envoy, Li Hui, to the talks. But Russia was not invited, and the Kremlin said the efforts would fail.

June 2024 – Switzerland peace summit

The June 2024 Summit on Peace in Ukraine, held at Switzerland’s Burgenstock resort, brought together more than 90 nations to discuss a framework for ending the conflict in Ukraine. The summit focused on nuclear safety, food security and prisoner exchanges, though Russia was not invited, and several nations, including India and Saudi Arabia, did not sign the final joint communique.

February 2025 – Trump-Putin call

A month after beginning his second term as US president, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he held a long phone call with his Russian counterpart, Putin, in a bid to restart direct negotiations aimed at ending the war.

On February 18, delegations from Washington and the Kremlin, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, met in Saudi Arabia.

They laid the groundwork for future negotiations, but the talks raised significant concerns in Kyiv and Brussels, as both Ukraine and the European Union had been sidelined from the meeting.

February 2025 – Zelenskyy goes to the White House

Ten days later, on February 28, there came a saturation point at the White House.

In one of the most confrontational moments in modern diplomacy, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated President Zelenskyy in a televised meeting in the Oval Office.

Zelenskyy – called out for not wearing a suit and not expressing enough gratitude to the US – found himself cornered.

August 2025 – Witkoff goes to Moscow

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Moscow to meet Putin on August 6. It was his third trip to Moscow and came amid renewed Western threats of sanctions on Russian oil exports and US threats of “secondary” trade tariffs.

Trump said afterwards that the meeting was “highly productive” and that “everyone agrees this war must come to a close”. Nothing more concrete came out of this meeting, however.

August 15, 2025 – Alaska summit

Trump dropped his sanctions threat and met Putin in person on August 15, 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska.

But no deal was reached.

August 18, 2025

Trump hosted Zelenskyy and other European leaders in Washington and said he would ask Putin to agree to a trilateral summit.

But nothing came out of this visit, either.

November 2025 – Geneva talks

In November 2025, the Geneva talks became a flashpoint for Western unity, as the Trump administration’s controversial 28-point plan leaked to the press, reportedly involving a cap on Ukraine’s military and a freeze on NATO membership. It also suggested that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia.

Reportedly authored by US envoy Witkoff along with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, the draft sparked accusations that the US was drafting a “capitulation” for Ukraine.

No deal was reached after revisions were made to the draft proposal.

December 2025 – Berlin and Miami talks

On December 14 and 15 last year, President Zelenskyy travelled to Berlin to meet US envoys Witkoff and Kushner, alongside a powerful group of European leaders, including Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

Following this, US negotiators optimistically claimed that 90 percent of the issues between the two sides had been resolved.

Then, later in the month, Witkoff and Kushner hosted another session of talks in Miami, Florida in the US. But the issues around sovereignty over Ukraine’s Donbas region and the exact line of demarcation proved impossible to bridge.

And no deal was reached.

January 2026 – Abu Dhabi talks

On January 23, high-level delegations from the US, Ukraine and Russia sat face to face to hold trilateral talks for the first time since the 2022 invasion.

Hosted at the Al Shati Palace in Abu Dhabi, talks were mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

Another round of talks was held on February 4, reaching an agreement on a major prisoner exchange but leaving key political and security issues unresolved.

The delegations agreed to exchange 314 prisoners of war – 157 each – the first such swap in five months.

February 17-18, 2026: Geneva talks

Talks in Geneva are currently under way.

Senior military figures from both Ukraine and Russia have attended the second three-way effort, along with the US, to end the war in Ukraine. These have largely stalled so far due to Russia’s insistence on keeping territory it has seized from Ukraine.

Colombia’s largest criminal group paused talks after President Gustavo Petro pledged to target its leader, Chiquito Malo.

Colombia’s government has announced it will resume peace talks with the powerful Gulf Clan, also known as the Gaitanist Self-Defence Forces (ECG), after the criminal group expressed concern about a recent deal with the United States.

Tuesday’s announcement addresses a temporary suspension the Gulf Clan announced earlier this month, in the wake of a meeting between Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his US counterpart, Donald Trump.

Faced with US pressure to crack down on drug cartels, Petro agreed to prioritise three “kingpins” his government considered “high-level targets”.

One of those targets was the leader of the Gulf Clan, Jobanis de Jesus Avila Villadiego, known as Chiquito Malo.

The Gulf Clan responded by pausing talks with the Petro government until it received clarity on the scope of the government’s actions.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the two parties said they had “overcome” any hurdles to the talks.

They also explained that the ongoing talks would be mediated by the Catholic Church and the governments of Qatar, Spain, Norway and Switzerland.

The Gulf Clan is one of several armed groups that have jostled for control of territory as part of Colombia’s six-decade-long internal conflict, which has pitted criminal groups, left-wing rebels, government forces and right-wing paramilitaries against each other.

With approximately 9,000 fighters, the Gulf Clan is considered one of the country’s largest cartels. The US designated it a “foreign terrorist organisation” in December.

Trump has pushed the Petro government to take more aggressive action against drug trafficking overall. In January, he even threatened to attack Colombia, saying that Petro needed to “watch his a**”.

But relations between the two leaders have warmed in recent weeks, particularly since Petro’s visit to the White House on February 3.

Previously, Colombian governments had taken a more militarised approach to addressing the country’s internal conflict. Colombia has long been considered a top ally in the US’s worldwide “war on drugs”.

But upon taking office in 2022, Petro sought to take a different approach, bringing armed groups and criminal networks to the table for negotiations under a programme called “Total Peace”.

The peace talks, however, have faced a series of setbacks, particularly in the wake of new bursts of violence.

In January, for example, Petro granted himself emergency powers following an outbreak of violence near the border with Venezuela between various armed groups, including the National Liberation Army (ELN).

That violence resulted in the suspension of peace talks with the ELN.

Petro, the country’s first left-wing president, has also faced pressure from the right to assure justice is carried out on behalf of the victims of drug trafficking.

His government has repeatedly rejected allegations that it has not done enough to stem drug trafficking in Colombia, which has historically been the world’s largest producer of cocaine.

Petro has pointed to historic drug busts, including one in November that resulted in the seizure of 14 tonnes of cocaine, as evidence of his government’s efficacy.

Criminal networks and other groups have long jostled to gain control of drug-trafficking routes.

Those clashes saw a spike after a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist rebel group that agreed to disarm in 2016.

The group’s dissolution left a power vacuum that other drug-trafficking organisations have sought to fill.

How to address Colombia’s ongoing internal conflict is set to be a major election issue in May, when the country chooses a new president. Petro is limited by law to a single consecutive term and will therefore not be on the ballot.

Feb. 17 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he would participate “indirectly” in U.S.-Iran nuclear talks due to resume in Geneva on Tuesday.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Monday night, Trump said the negotiations were very important and he believed Tehran wanted to reach a deal, saying the fallout of not doing so would be very bad news, referencing U.S. air and missile strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities in June, following failed negotiations.

“I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal. We could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s [stealth bomber aircraft] in to knock out their nuclear potential. And we had to send the B-2s. I hope they’re going to be more reasonable,” said Trump, who acknowledged that they were tough to negotiate with.

Similar optimism for its own prospects emanated from the Iranian side on Monday with the foreign ministry in Tehran saying it believed the United States’ position had shifted to “a more realistic one,” regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Following a meeting in Geneva on Monday with International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi on “technical matters,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he was heading into the talks with “real ideas” to achieve a fair and just agreement, vowing Iran would not be coerced.

“What is not on the table: submission before threats,” he wrote in a post on X.

On Friday, Trump announced he was dispatching a second carrier strike group, the USS Gerald Ford, to the region to join an already substantial U.S. naval armada in the Arabian to ratchet up pressure on Tehran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and a deadly crackdown on protesters that began in late December.

Trump said he was deploying the world’s largest carrier to join the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group sent last month because if Iran didn’t “make a deal, we’ll need it.”

The Gerald Ford and its battleships and associated vessels, currently deployed in the Caribbean, are expected to arrive in the Arabian Sea in three to four weeks.

Tuesday’s negotiations pick up from talks in Oman on Feb. 6 where a U.S. team led by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, met with the Iranian’s led by Araghchi, although proceedings were mediated by Omani officials and the two sides did not talk face-to-face.

As well as agreement on curtailing Iran’s enrichment of uranium, the Trump administration wants the talks to include its ballistic missile arsenal, a recent brutal crackdown on public protests and backing of regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.

Tehran has been pushing back, insisting it is only willing to discuss reining in its nuclear program — in exchange for sanctions relief.

Delegations from Russia and Ukraine are set to meet for another round of peace talks in Geneva, as United States President Donald Trump pushes for an end to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

The two-day talks, which begin on Tuesday, are likely to focus on the issue of territory and come just days before the fourth anniversary, on February 24, of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Trump is pressing Moscow and Kyiv to reach a deal soon, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has complained that his country is facing the greatest pressure from Washington to make concessions.

Russia ⁠is demanding that Kyiv cede the remaining 20 percent of the eastern region of Donetsk that Moscow has failed to capture – something Kyiv refuses to do.

Trump again increased the pressure on Ukraine late on Monday.

When asked about the talks on board Air Force One, he described the negotiations as “big” and said, “Ukraine better come to the table, fast.” He did not elaborate further, saying, “That’s all I am telling you.”

The talks, which the Kremlin said will be held behind closed doors and with no media present, come after two earlier rounds held this year in Abu Dhabi. Those talks did not yield a breakthrough.

“This time, the idea is to discuss a broader range of issues, including, in fact, the main ones,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. “The main issues concern both the territories and everything else related to the demands we have put forward,” he said.

Ukraine, meanwhile, said Russia was unwilling to compromise and wants to keep fighting.

“Even on the eve of the trilateral meetings in Geneva, the Russian army has no orders other than to continue striking Ukraine. This speaks volumes about how Russia regards the partners’ diplomatic efforts,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post on Monday.

“Only with sufficient pressure on Russia and clear security guarantees for Ukraine can this war realistically be brought to an end,” he added.

‘Serious’ intentions

The Russia-Ukraine war has spiralled into Europe’s deadliest conflict since 1945, with tens of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes and many Ukrainian cities, towns and villages devastated by the fighting.

Russia occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion. It wants Ukrainian troops to withdraw from swaths of heavily fortified and strategic territory as part of any peace deal. Kyiv has rejected the demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and has instead demanded robust security guarantees from the West.

The Kremlin said the Russian delegation would be led by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin.

However, the fact that Ukrainian negotiators have accused Medinsky in the past of lecturing them about history as an excuse for Russia’s invasion ⁠has further lowered expectations for any significant breakthrough in Geneva.

Military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov will also take part in the talks, while Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev will be part of a separate ⁠working group on economic issues.

Vladmir Sotnikov, a political scientist based in Moscow, said the Russian team will consist of about 20 people, many more than delegations in previous rounds of talks.

“I think the Russian intentions are serious. Because you know, the situation here in Russia is that ordinary people are just tired of this war,” he told Al Jazeera.

Kyiv’s delegation will be led by Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, and Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov. Senior presidential aide Serhiy Kyslytsya will ‌also be present.

Before the delegation left for Geneva, Umerov said Ukraine’s goal of “a sustainable and lasting peace” remained unchanged.

As well as land, Russia and Ukraine also remain far apart on issues such as who should control the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the ‌possible ‌role of Western troops in post-war Ukraine.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will represent the Trump administration at the talks, according to the Reuters news agency. They are also attending talks in Geneva this week with Iran.

Iran launched naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, state TV reports, ahead of US-Iran nuclear talks in Geneva on Tuesday. Video shows Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, overseeing the drills.

Feb. 16 (UPI) — Warner Bros. Discovery is considering reopening talks with Paramount Skydance after Paramount sweetened its offer to buy the company last week, sources say.

Bloomberg News first reported Sunday that WBD was considering the offer.

In October, Warner Bros. said it was open to offers, and on Dec. 5, after a bidding war between Netflix and Paramount, WBD agreed to Netflix’s offer. Then Paramount launched a hostile bid to buy WBD, but the board wasn’t budging. Then Paramount announced that Oracle creator Larry Ellison was backing the deal with $40 billion in equity. On Jan. 20, Netflix changed its offer to all cash, then on Feb. 10, Paramount did the same and added some sweeteners.

The sweetened deal included paying the $2.8 billion termination fee that WBD would owe Netflix and an agreement to back WBD’s debt costs. It also agreed to pay a ticking fee of 25 cents per share for each quarter the deal is delayed, starting in 2027, totalling about $650 million in cash per quarter.

Paramount and Netflix have both said they would be willing to raise their bids, Bloomberg reported. This is the first time, though, that WBD has given serious consideration to Paramount’s offer. It has until Feb. 25 to respond to Paramount’s offer.

Some WBD shareholders, including the investment firm Ancora, have expressed concerns with Netflix’s deal. One main issue is whether it would pass federal scrutiny. Paramount’s connection with Larry Ellison is a bonus because he’s friendly with President Donald Trump, who has said he would get involved with the process.

Last week, Paramount appointed Rene Augustine as its senior vice president of global public policy. Augustine is a former lawyer in the Trump administration, further bolstering Paramount’s regulatory clout.

Netflix has said it’s confident it can pass regulatory scrutiny. Its co-CEO Ted Sarandos faced a Senate hearing on Feb. 4 about the deal. Paramount didn’t participate.

Warner Bros. is waiting for the Security and Exchange Commission to approve its filings, which would allow it to schedule a shareholder vote on the Netflix offer.

Iran’s top diplomat says he hopes to ‘achieve a fair and equitable deal’ before high-stakes talks are held on Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Geneva for high-stakes second round of nuclear talks with the United States aimed at reducing tensions and avert a new military confrontation that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned could turn into a regional conflict.

“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Araghchi wrote on X on Monday. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”

Iran and the US renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their ⁠decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme as US deploys warships, including a second aircraft carrier, to the region as mediators work to prevent a war.

Araghchi met with Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Monday, after saying his team nuclear experts for a “deep technical discussion”.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has been calling for access to Iran’s main nuclear facilities that were bombed by the US and Israel during the 12-day war in June. Tehran has said there might be a risk of radiation, so an official protocol is required to carry out the unprecedented task of inspecting highly enriched uranium ostensibly buried under the rubble.

Speaking to state-run IRNA news agency on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the IAEA will play “an important role” in upcoming mediated talks between Iran and the US. But he also renewed Tehran’s criticism of Grossi for the director’s refusal to condemn military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites that are protected under agency safeguards as part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Araghchi also said he would meet his Omani counterpart, Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi, who mediated the first round of talks between Iran and the US since the war earlier this month.

Iran has repeatedly emphasised that it will not agree to Washington’s demand for zero nuclear enrichment, and considers its missile programme a “red line” that cannot be negotiated.

Meanwhile, the US continues to build up its military presence in the region, with President Donald Trump saying a change of power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen” and sending in a second aircraft carrier.

Trump is again likely to send his special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to represent the White House in the Geneva talks. Brad Cooper, the most senior US military commander in the region, had unexpectedly joined the US delegation during the Muscat talks on February 6.

The talks also come over a month after Iran’s deadly crackdown against nationwide protests, with Iranian officials claiming “terrorists” and “rioters” armed and funded by the US and Israel were behind the unrest.

The UN and international human rights organisations have blamed Iranian authorities for the widespread use of lethal force against peaceful protesters, which killed thousands, mainly on the nights of January 8 and 9.

But the hardliners in Tehran are more concerned about any potential concessions that could be given during upcoming talks with the US.

Addressing an open session on Monday, one of the most hardline lawmakers in Iran’s parliament cautioned security chief Ali Larijani against giving inspection access to the IAEA befire ensuring Iran’s territorial integrity, the security of nuclear sites and scientists, and use of peaceful nuclear energy for civilian purposes under the NPT.

“When US warships have opened their arms to embrace Iranian missiles, US bases have opened arms to take our missiles, and the homes of Zionist military personnel are anticipating the sound of the air raid sirens, it is obvious that such conditions cannot be met at the moment,” said Hamid Rasaei, a cleric close to the hardline Paydari (Steadfastness) faction.

In the other diplomatic track pursued in Switzerland on Tuesday, officials will be discussing ways of ending the Ukraine war, which is approaching the end of its fourth year after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

But no immediate breakthrough appears in sight, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday that Kyiv has “too often” been asked to make concessions.

Foreign minister says regional powers have been ‘far more effective’ than European countries.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has derided the Munich Security Conference as a “circus”, accusing European powers of “paralysis and irrelevance” in efforts to revive nuclear negotiations with the United States.

Iranian officials were not invited to the annual security meeting in the German city.

“Sad to see the usually serious Munich Security Conference turned into the ‘Munich Circus’ when it comes to Iran,” Araghchi wrote on X on Sunday.

“The paralysis and irrelevance of the EU/E3 is displayed in the dynamics surrounding the current talks over Iran’s nuclear program. … Once a key interlocutor, Europe is now nowhere to be seen. Instead, our friends in the region [the Gulf] are far more effective and helpful than an empty-handed and peripheral E3.”

The E3 – which included France, the United Kingdom and Germany – were key players in the previous round of nuclear negotiations between world powers and Iran. That process culminated in 2015 with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a landmark agreement aimed at limiting the scope of Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

The US under the first administration of President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and ramped up sanctions on Iran. Since then, the process has largely stalled. Still, the E3 maintained a role as a go-between with Tehran and Washington.

But since negotiations resumed last year, Gulf countries, such as Oman and Qatar, have taken the lead in facilitating talks between the US and Iran.

Araghchi made the remarks before leaving Tehran to lead a diplomatic and technical delegation to Geneva for a new round of nuclear talks with the US. The talks follow last week’s indirect negotiations in Oman, which is mediating the process, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

During his visit, Araghchi is expected to meet his Swiss and Omani counterparts, as well as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, and other international officials.

Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, said Araghchi’s comments “indicate a policy shift from the Iranian side that the E3 mechanism … is no longer a valid channel for resolution”.

“This nuclear mediation has moved from Europe to the region, and now the heavy lifting in diplomacy is done by regional players,” he said.

On Tuesday, Oman is to host talks between the US and Iran in Geneva after previous indirect negotiations in Muscat on February 6. Those talks were attended by US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

US and Iranian officials previously held several rounds of talks in the Omani capital to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme last year. But that process was halted as Israel launched a 12-day war with Iran in June, which the US briefly joined by bombing three Iranian nuclear facilities.

The new rounds of negotiations come as tensions in the region remain high, with Trump moving more US military assets to the Middle East. On Friday, the US president said he was sending a second aircraft carrier to the region while openly talking about a change in Iran’s government.

Despite the new push for diplomacy, the two sides have maintained their positions. Iran has shown flexibility in discussing its nuclear programme, but the US wants to widen the talks to include Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for regional armed groups – two issues that Tehran says are nonnegotiable.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — The U.S. military is sending the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, to the Middle East as tensions with Tehran over its nuclear program ratchet up, President Donald Trump confirmed Friday.

Trump told reporters he’s sending the vessel because if the United States and Iran doesn’t “make a deal, we’ll need it,” The Hill reported.

The vessel and its supporting warships, which are in the Caribbean, will join the USS Abraham Lincoln in a trek that’s expected to take about three to four weeks, The Guardian reported.

“We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going,” Trump said in an interview with Axios on Tuesday.

An unnamed official said Trump made the decision to send the USS Gerald R. Ford to the Middle East after his Thursday meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The U.S. Southern Command said in a statement to The Hill that it was carrying out “mission-focused operations to counter illicit activities and malign actors in the Western Hemisphere.”

“While force posture evolves, our operational capability does not. SOUTHCOM forces remain fully ready to project power, defend themselves, and protect U.S. interests in the region.”

U.S. and Iranian leaders have been involved in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear arms program. Tehran has shown willingness to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of economic sanctions, but has declined to consider requests to scale back its ballistic missile arsenal.

A deadly exchange of drone strikes has killed one person in Ukraine and one in Russia and cast doubts on the prospects of a ceasefire before another round of negotiations to end the war next week.

News of the deaths comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signalled hurdles to reaching an agreement in Geneva as the conflict is about to enter its fifth year.

Zelenskyy told world leaders at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday while he hopes “substantive” progress will be reached during the trilateral meeting next week, it often feels like the two sides “are talking about different things” in negotiations. 

“The Americans often return to the topic of concessions, and too often those concessions are discussed only in the context of Ukraine, not Russia,” Zelenskyy said.

Rubio said it’s unclear if Moscow truly wants to make a peace deal.

“We don’t know if the Russians are serious about ending the war,” he said before the same Munich event. “We’re going to continue to test it.”

Among the most contentious issues in the negotiations is Russia’s demand for a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the remaining parts of Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk that it still controls.

Ukraine has rejected a unilateral pullback and wants Western security guarantees to deter Russia from relaunching its invasion if a ceasefire is reached.

Rubio did not attend a Ukraine-focused meeting with European and NATO leaders held on the sidelines of the first day of the Munich conference on Friday, citing scheduling issues.

In Munich on Saturday, Zelenskyy insisted Russia should not get away with its attack on Ukraine. He said he hoped the United States would stay involved in the peace negotiations and European countries would deepen their involvement.

Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel told Al Jazeera while US President Donald Trump should be credited with moving talks forward, he should put more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin instead of Zelenskyy.

“Putin has shown no goodwill to come to the table and make a serious deal. The Ukrainians are ready,” van Weel said.

Last week, Zelenskyy said the US had given the warring parties a June deadline to reach a deal, although Trump’s previous ultimatums have not resulted in a breakthrough.

Two previous rounds of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, led by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, reportedly focused on military issues such as a possible buffer zone and ceasefire monitoring.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to many estimates, making the war Europe’s deadliest since World War II.

Russia ⁠is ⁠suffering “crazy losses” in Ukraine with about 65,000 soldiers killed on the battlefield ⁠over the last two months, NATO ⁠Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the conference.

Separately, ‌Rutte told a media roundtable the NATO alliance is strong enough that Russia would not ⁠currently try to attack it. “We ⁠will win every fight with Russia if they ⁠attack us now, and we ⁠have to ⁠make sure in two, four, six years that same ‌is still the case.”

Among the latest casualties was an elderly woman killed on Saturday when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

On Wednesday, Russian strikes also killed three children, including two-year-old twins and their father in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.

In January alone, Russia launched more than 6,000 drone attacks against Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy. But he added Ukraine will soon produce enough interceptors to make Russia’s Iran-made Shahed drones “meaningless”.

He also told the Munich conference that every power plant in Ukraine has been damaged in Russian attacks.

In Russia, a civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the border region of Bryansk, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

The attacks came a day after a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine killed two people and wounded five, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Gladkov earlier said the attack also caused serious damage to energy facilities and electricity, heating and water supplies were cut off. Three apartment buildings in the city sustained damage, he said.

Ukrainian member of parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko, meanwhile, accused Moscow of launching “energy terror” with attacks on electricity facilities in the heart of winter.

“I can’t call it any other way because when it is minus 20 Celsius in Kyiv and you don’t have heating, you don’t have electricity in your apartment, you’re just freezing and that is awful,” Goncharenko told Al Jazeera in Munich.

“I think it’s time for the United States to put real pressure on Russia. Yes, they are at the table, but it’s time to put real pressure to make them have real negotiations, because what we have today is not real negotiations.”

MILAN — He popped the quad axel. He stumbled across the ice. He tried to hide the pained expression.

Ilia Malinin fell apart in the men’s free skate, tumbling from near lock to win the gold medal to eighth place after a disastrous performance Friday. After his music ended, Malinin covered his anguished face. He put his hands on his knees, shook his head in disbelief and scrunched his face, hoping to hold back the tears.

It was the first time since November 2023 that he hadn’t won a competition.

“I just thought that all I needed to do was go out there and trust the process that I’ve always been doing with every competition,” Malinin said with tear-stained cheeks. “But, of course, it’s not like any other competition. It’s the Olympics.”

American Ilia Malinin reacts after stumbling through the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics on Friday in Milan.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Malinin skated four times at the Milan-Cortina Games, helping the United States to a team gold medal with a clutch free skate that clinched the one-point win. But the 21-year-old had just one clean skate in his first Games experience. He explained his slow start during the team event as “Olympic nerves.”

There was no explaining away Friday’s flop.

“I think people only realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happen from the inside,” said Malinin, whose technical advantage was supposed to be insurmountable for his opponents. “It was really just something that overwhelmed me. I just felt like I had no control.”

After Malinin’s score was announced, Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov covered his mouth in shock. He was the new Olympic champion. Shaidorov claimed his country’s first Olympic gold in figure skating. His coach held his arm up like a boxing champion as a legion of Kazakh fans seated in the corner above the kiss-and-cry booth where skaters wait for their score waved their country’s teal and yellow flags. Malinin hugged him. He pointed to Shaidorov’s chest.

“You deserve it,” Malinin said.

Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama shook off several falls in his program to fight for his second consecutive Olympic silver. His countryman Shun Sato was in tears after learning he took the bronze.

Ilia Malinin’s father, Roman Skorniakov, reacts during his son’s performance at the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics on Friday in Milan.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The United States’ Andrew Torgashev finished 12th with his season’s best 259.06-point total. Maxim Naumov stumbled through several jumps in his free skate to finish 20th overall with a 223.36 point total. The 24-year-old who lost both parents in a plane crash last year earned a standing ovation from actor Jeff Goldblum, who was in the stands behind the judges.

As the groups progressed toward the medal contenders, the crowd filled Milano Ice Skating Arena to the brim. Fans in suites in the rafters leaned over glass panes to get a better look. Volunteers and arena workers stood at the top of the concourse with no open seats left to claim.

While rising to the top of the sport with his stunning jumps and crowd-pleasing backflip, Malinin said his mission was to boost the popularity of figure skating to get this kind of attention outside of just the Olympic stage.

But standing at the center of the ice as fans waved U.S. flags from every corner, Malinin, the “Quad God” who looked invincible just three months ago when he became the first person to land seven quadruple jumps in one program, felt scared.

“Especially going into that starting pose, I just felt like all the just traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head,” Malinin said. “It was just like so many negative thoughts that just flooded into there, and I just did not handle it.”

He started off the program with a strong quad flip. Then he bailed mid-air on his signature quad axel that he had yet to attempt in the Olympics. The crowd gasped. Panic started when Malinin downgraded a planned quadruple loop to a double two jumps later.

American Ilia Malinin falls while competing in the men’s singles free skate at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Friday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Behind the boards, his father and coach, Roman Skorniakov covered his face. Coach Rafael Arutyunyan, who has worked with Malinin part-time since 2021, paced back and forth. He hit the padded boards for encouragement before Malinin lined up for a three-jump combination.

Malinin fell again.

The program couldn’t end soon enough just to allow the 21-year-old a chance to hide after years of being in the spotlight as the presumed next Olympic champion.

“Being the Olympic gold hopeful is really just a lot to deal with,” Malinin said, “especially for my age.”

Malinin’s free skate music includes self-narrated voiceovers telling the story of his personal journey growing in the sport. As it begins, he uncovers his face. His words echo over the speakers.“The only true wisdom,” Malinin says in the program, “is in knowing you know nothing.”

After this result, that couldn’t be more true.

New opinion poll finds seven in 10 US adults disapprove of President Donald Trump’s handling of Greenland issue.

Denmark’s prime minister and Greenland’s premier met ⁠with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and agreed that talks would be pursued on the running of Greenland, the semi-autonomous Danish territory that President Donald Trump has threatened to take over.

Rubio held a 15-minute meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

Greenland’s leader Nielsen said in a post on social media that during the meeting with Rubio, “it was emphasised that the conversations being made are the right way forward and the interests of Greenland were once again clearly highlighted”.

Prime Minister Frederiksen said on X after the meeting: “Constructive talk with Secretary of State Marco Rubio together with Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Chairman of Naalakkersuisut, at the Munich Security Conference.”

“Work will continue as agreed in the high-level working group,” she said.

The meeting between the Danish and Greenlandic leaders and the US state secretary comes amid severely strained ties between Europe and Washington, and NATO allies, amid President Trump’s repeated threats to take over Greenland and criticism of European nations as “decaying” and “weak”.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump said, “We’re negotiating ‌right ‌now for Greenland.”

“I ‌think Greenland’s going to want us, but we get along very well with Europe. We’ll see how it all works out,” he said.

After months of bellicose language regarding the US’s necessity to acquire Greenland, Trump abruptly stepped back from his threats last month, saying that he had reached an understanding with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte that would give the US greater influence in the mineral-rich Arctic territory.

Late last month, the US, Denmark and Greenland also launched talks to find a diplomatic path out of the crisis.

Poll finds most US adults disapprove of Trump’s Greenland plan

The US administration has cited key national security concerns related to Russia and China to justify its demand to take control over Greenland and has accused Denmark, and Europe more broadly, of being unable to defend the strategic territory.

But, according to a new opinion poll conducted by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Trump’s push to seize control of Greenland has gone down badly with the US public and members of his own party.

The survey, conducted between February 5-8, found that about seven in 10 US adults disapprove of how Trump is handling the Greenland issue – a higher disapproval rating than the share of those who dislike how he is handling foreign policy generally.

Even among Republican supporters, about half disapprove of his attempt to turn Greenland into US territory, according to the poll.

Sweden said on Thursday that it would send fighter jets to patrol Greenland as part of a newly launched NATO mission in the Arctic aimed at placating Trump’s concerns over the threats posed by Moscow and Beijing.

The government said in a statement that Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets would patrol Greenland as part of the newly-launched NATO mission, Arctic Sentry.

“As a NATO ally, Sweden has a responsibility to contribute to the security of the entire territory of the Alliance. The Arctic region is becoming increasingly important from a strategic perspective,” Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said.

In a separate statement, the Swedish Armed Forces said the fighter jets would be based out of Iceland, where six aircraft have been stationed since early February as part of the rotating incident response force, NATO Air Policing.

Swedish special forces would also be sent to Greenland to take part in training exercises for a couple of weeks, the military said.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Kirsty Coventry gets tearful as she explains the conversation she had with Ukrainian skeleton pilot Vladyslav Heraskevych.

Heraskevych was banned from participating in the race for continuing to wear a helmet featuring images of athletes killed during Russia’s invasion of his home country, which the IOC says breaks its rules.

READ MORE: ‘Price of dignity’ says Ukrainian athlete banned over helmet

Feb. 10 (Asia Today) — Jeong Cheong-rae, leader of South Korea’s Democratic Party, said Monday he has suspended merger talks with the Jo Kuk Innovation Party less than three weeks after publicly proposing the idea, citing internal unity ahead of upcoming local elections.

Jeong told reporters after a party leadership meeting that discussions will be put on hold until after the local elections.

“Until the local elections, we will stop the merger talks,” Jeong said. “Whether people supported or opposed the merger, we all share the spirit of putting the party first. We respect the will of party members. I believe harmony is more urgent than controversy over integration.”

Jeong said the party will form a preparatory committee focused on “solidarity and integration” and will revisit the merger after the local vote.

The Democratic Party’s move comes 19 days after Jeong publicly raised the possibility of merging with the Innovation Party, a smaller liberal party associated with former Justice Minister Cho Kuk.

Jeong also apologized for friction stirred by the discussions.

“Everything that happened during this process was due to my shortcomings,” he said. “I apologize to the public, our party members and members of the Jo Kuk Innovation Party.”

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260210010003885

Departing for Washington, DC, Israeli prime minister hails his close ties to the US president amid nuclear talks with Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will present Donald Trump with “principles” for negotiating with Iran as he heads to Washington, DC, for his sixth official visit with the US president over the past year.

Netanyahu hailed the “unique closeness” between Israel and the United States and his own warm ties to Trump before leaving Tel Aviv on Tuesday.

“I will present Trump with principles for negotiations with Iran that are important not only to Israel but to everyone who wants peace and security,” Netanyahu told reporters, according to The Jerusalem Post newspaper.

“In my opinion, these are important principles for everyone who wants peace and security in the Middle East.”

His visit comes days after Washington and Tehran concluded a round of nuclear talks in Oman – the first negotiations since the June 2025 war that saw the US bomb Iran’s main nuclear facilities after waves of Israeli attacks.

Israel is not part of those talks, but Netanyahu has long sought to exert influence over US presidents to shape Washington’s policies in the region.

Netanyahu did not provide details about his “principles” for a potential Iran deal, but he has previously said Tehran should agree to full disarmament of heavy weapons, akin to Libya’s 2003 deal with the West.

Iran has ruled out negotiations over its missile programme, which it views as one of its most important deterrents against Israeli attacks.

When Israel launched its surprise assault against Iran in June of last year – killing several of the country’s top generals and nuclear scientists as well as hundreds of civilians – Tehran relied primarily on its missiles to respond after air defences were taken out.

Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel, dozens of which penetrated the country’s multilayered air defences, killing 28 people and causing significant damage.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Saturday that Iran’s missile programme is a defence issue that is “never negotiable”.

Israel and the US may also push Iran to end support to its network of allied non-state actors in the region – including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and armed groups in Iraq.

But that alliance, known as the Axis of Resistance, has already been weakened by Israeli assaults over the past two years.

Another sticking issue in the talks is whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium domestically.

While Tehran has said it would agree to strict limits and monitoring of its nuclear activities, it has maintained that domestic enrichment is a sovereign national right.

Despite Washington’s talks with Tehran, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee – who is joining Netanyahu on his trip – has stressed Israel and the United States have the same red lines when it comes to Iran.

“I think there’s an extraordinary alignment between Israel and the United States. Everyone would love to see something that would resolve without a war, but it will be up to Iran,” he told reporters.

“If they insist on holding nuclear weaponry and enriched uranium, then I think the president made very clear that this is not acceptable.”

The United States has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, destroyers, and fighter jets to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement. Tehran says it won’t be swayed by threats of war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump, saying Iran negotiations will be the “first and foremost” topic of discussion.

Tehran, Iran – Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has called on the United States to respect his country as the two nations look ahead to another round of nuclear negotiations next week following mediated discussions in Oman.

“Our reasoning on the nuclear issue is based on rights stipulated in the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he wrote in a post on X on Sunday. “The Iranian nation has always responded to respect with respect, but cannot withstand the language of force”.

Pezeshkian described the indirect talks held in Oman on Friday as a “step forward” and said his administration favours dialogue.

Iranian officials are highlighting sovereignty and independence and are signalling eagerness for nuclear-only negotiations, while rejecting a military build-up in the region by the US.

Speaking at a forum hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran, the country’s chief diplomat Abbas Araghchi pointed out that the Islamic Republic has always emphasised independence since overthrowing US-backed Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in a 1979 revolution.

“Before the revolution, the people did not believe their establishment to have possessed true independence,” Araghchi said.

The messaging comes as the anniversary of the revolution approaches on Wednesday, when state-organised demonstrations have been planned across the country. Iranian authorities have in previous years exhibited military equipment, including ballistic missiles, during the rallies.

Araghchi said during the event in the capital that Iran is unwilling to forego nuclear enrichment for civilian use even if it leads to more military attacks by the US and Israel, “because no one has the right to tell us what we must have and must not have”.

However, the diplomat added that he told US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Muscat on Friday that “there is no way but negotiations”. He said China and Russia have also been informed of the content of the talks.

“Being afraid is lethal poison in this situation,” Araghchi said about Washington amassing what US President Donald Trump has called a “beautiful armada” near Iran’s waters.

‘Push the region back years’

Iran’s top military commander on Sunday issued a new warning that the entire region will be engulfed in conflict if Iran is attacked.

“While being prepared, we genuinely have no desire to see the outbreak of a regional war,” Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi told a gathering of air force and air defence commanders and personnel.

“Even though aggressors will be the target of the flames of regional war, this will push back the advancement and development of the region by years, and its repercussions will be borne by the warmongers in the US and the Zionist regime,” he said in reference to Israel.

According to Mousavi, Iran “has the necessary power and preparedness for a long-term war with the US”.

But many average Iranians are left in limbo without much hope that the talks with the US will lead to results, including for the country’s heavily declining economy.

“I was 20 when the first negotiations with the West over Iran’s nuclear programme were held about 23 years ago,” Saman, who works at a small private investment firm in Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

“Our best years are behind us. But it’s even more sad to think that some of the youth who were born at the start of the negotiations were killed on the streets during the protests last month with many hopes and dreams.”

‘They never returned’

Iran is witnessing tense time and threats of a massive US military strike. But the Islamic Republic has not overcome anti-government protests that shook the nation, denouncing the collapse of the national currency, soaring prices and economic hardship.

State television continues to broadcast confessions of Iranians arrested during the nationwide protests, many of whom are accused by the state of working in line with the interests of foreign powers.

In a report aired late on Saturday, a woman and multiple men with blurred-out faces and in handcuffs could be seen saying they were led by a man who allegedly received weapons and money from Mossad operatives in neighbouring Iraq’s Erbil.

“He only wanted more people to die; he shot at everyone,” one of the confessing men said about what allegedly transpired during unrest in the Tehranpars district in the eastern part of the capital, backing the state’s claim that “terrorists” are responsible for all deaths.

Iranian authorities have accused the US, Israel and European countries of instigating the protests.

But international human rights organisations and foreign-based opposition groups accuse state forces of being behind the unprecedented killings during the protests, which were carried out mostly on the nights of January 8 and 9.

The Iranian government claims 3,117 people were killed, but the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has documented nearly 7,000 fatalities and is investigating more than 11,600 cases. The United Nations special rapporteur on Iran, Mati Sato, said more than 20,000 may have been killed as information trickles out despite heavy internet filtering.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify these figures.

Amid numerous reports that dozens of medical staff were arrested for treating wounded protesters and remain incarcerated in harsh conditions, Iran’s judiciary issued a rejection of the allegations late Saturday. It claimed that only “a limited number of medical personnel were arrested for participating in riots and playing a role in the field”.

A large number of schoolchildren and university students were also reportedly among tens of thousands arrested during and in the aftermath of the nationwide protests. The Ministry of Education claimed last week that it did not know how many schoolchildren were arrested, but could confirm that all have since been released.

The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations on Sunday released the four-minute video below, titled “200 empty school desks”, which shows the schoolchildren and teenagers confirmed killed during the protests. Many were accompanied by their parents when killed.

One month after the killings, countless families are left grieving and continue to release videos commemorating their loved ones online.

A message on Instagram calling on the international community to keep talking about the people of Iran has now been shared more than 1.5 million times.

“One month ago today, thousands woke up and ate breakfast for the last time without knowing it, and kissed their mother for the last time without knowing it,” the message reads. “They lived for the last time and never returned.”

The first round of Iran-US talks in Muscat produced no breakthrough. The next few weeks will determine whether they laid foundations or merely bought time before escalation.

When Iranian and American negotiators concluded several hours of talks in Muscat on February 6, publicly, neither side signalled any shift from its opening position. Iran insisted the discussions focus exclusively on the nuclear file. The United States arrived seeking a comprehensive framework that would also cover ballistic missiles, regional armed groups, and more broadly, issues Washington has raised publicly, including human rights concerns. Neither prevailed. Both agreed to meet again.

On the surface, this looks like a non-event. It was not.

The Muscat round was the first high-level diplomatic engagement between the two countries since the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, an escalation that Iran later said killed more than 1,000 people and involved strikes on three nuclear sites. That the two sides returned to the same palace near Muscat’s airport where previous rounds were held in 2025, and agreed to return again is significant.

But continuation is not progress. The distance between what happened in Muscat and what a deal requires remains vast.

Diplomacy conducted under military escort

The most striking feature of the Muscat round was not what was said, but who sat in the room. The American delegation was led by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law. It also included, for the first time, Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of US Central Command, in full dress uniform.

His presence at the negotiating table was not incidental. It was a signal. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was operating in the Arabian Sea as the talks unfolded, and days earlier, US forces had shot down an Iranian drone that approached the carrier.

An Iranian diplomatic source told the Reuters news agency that Cooper’s presence “endangered” the talks. Another, quoted by Al-Araby TV, warned that “negotiations taking place under threat” could impose strategic costs rather than advance them. For Tehran, the message was unmistakable: This was diplomacy conducted in the shadow of force, not as an alternative to it.

Washington, for its part, sees this as leverage. President Trump, speaking on board Air Force One after the talks, described them as “very good” and said Iran wants a deal “very badly”, adding: “They know the consequences if they don’t. They don’t make a deal; the consequences are very steep.”

This is diplomacy framed as an ultimatum. It may create urgency. It is unlikely to create trust, and trust is what this process most desperately needs.

The structural problem

The US withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, despite international verification that Iran was meeting its obligations. That decision shattered Iranian confidence in the durability of US commitments. Tehran’s subsequent incremental breaches of the agreement, steadily increasing enrichment levels from 2019 onwards, weakened its credibility, in turn.

This mutual distrust is not a negotiating obstacle that can be resolved with creative diplomacy alone. It is the defining condition under which any agreement must be built. The US has the capacity to impose enormous economic and military costs on Iran. But power does not automatically produce compliance. For commitments to hold, Iran must believe concessions will bring relief rather than new demands. That belief has been badly damaged.

Consider the sequence of events surrounding the Muscat round itself. Hours after the talks concluded, the US State Department announced new sanctions targeting 14 shadow fleet vessels involved in transporting Iranian petroleum, alongside penalties on 15 entities and two individuals. The Treasury Department framed the action as part of the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Whether preplanned or timed for effect, the message was clear: Washington intends to negotiate and squeeze simultaneously.

For Tehran, which has consistently demanded that sanctions relief be the starting point for progress, this sequencing confirms precisely the pattern it fears. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi identified this dynamic explicitly, telling Iranian state television that “the mistrust that has developed is a serious challenge facing the negotiations.”

What actually happened in Muscat

Beneath the competing narratives, the outlines of the substantive discussion have begun to emerge. Iran reportedly rejected a US demand for “zero enrichment”, a maximalist position it was never going to accept in a first meeting. The two sides instead discussed the dilution of Iran’s existing uranium stockpile, a more technical and potentially more productive avenue.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that diplomats from Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar had separately offered Iran a framework proposal: Halt enrichment for three years, transfer highly enriched uranium out of the country, and pledge not to initiate the use of ballistic missiles. Russia had reportedly signalled willingness to receive the uranium. Tehran has signalled both the enrichment halt and uranium transfer would be nonstarters.

Perhaps the most important development was the least visible. According to Axios, Witkoff and Kushner met directly with Araghchi during the talks, breaking from the strictly indirect format that Iran had demanded for most of last year’s rounds of negotiations. Iran had previously insisted on communicating with the US only through Omani intermediaries. Crossing that barrier, even partially, suggests both sides recognise the limits of indirect talks once bargaining becomes technical.

Oman’s framing was arguably the most honest assessment of the day. Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi described the talks as aimed at establishing “appropriate conditions for the resumption of diplomatic and technical negotiations”.

What the next few weeks will decide

Trump said a second round of talks would take place soon. Both sides indicated to Axios that further meetings were expected within days. The compressed timeline is notable. During last year’s rounds, weeks separated each session. The pace suggests Washington believes the diplomatic window is narrowing, and Tehran is at least willing to test that claim.

Several tests will show whether urgency produces substance or merely speed.

First, the scope question. The fundamental dispute over what the talks are about remains unresolved. Iran won the first procedural battle: The venue moved from Turkiye to Oman, regional observers were excluded, and Araghchi claims only nuclear issues were discussed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said before the talks that the agenda needed to include “all those issues”. If the second round begins with the same fight over scope, it will signal that even the basics remain unsettled.

Second, Iran’s enrichment posture. Before the June 2025 war, Iran had been enriching uranium to 60 percent purity, a short technical step from weapons-grade. Tehran has said enrichment stopped following the strikes. But Iran has also conditioned International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of the bombed sites on new inspection arrangements, raising concerns among non-proliferation experts. Conversely, reports of enrichment resumption or acceleration would likely end the diplomatic track.

Third, the military environment. The US naval build-up in the Arabian Sea is not decorative. The drone shootdown near the Abraham Lincoln and Iran’s attempted interception of a US-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz in the days before the talks show how quickly signalling can slide into miscalculation. Whether the carrier group is reinforced, maintained or gradually drawn down in the coming weeks will reveal more about Washington’s assessment of diplomacy than any press statement.

Fourth, the sanctions rhythm. The same-day announcement of shadow fleet sanctions establishes a pattern. If Washington continues to layer new economic penalties between rounds of talks, Tehran will treat it as evidence that diplomacy is performance rather than process.

Fifth, backchannel activity. The most consequential diplomacy over the next few weeks may not occur in formal settings. Oman, Qatar, Egypt and Turkiye have been working behind the scenes to sustain dialogue. If those intermediary contacts remain active, space for de-escalation persists. If they fall silent, the margin for error narrows.

A managed deadlock is not a strategy

The most probable short-term outcome remains neither breakthrough nor war, but a managed deadlock in which both sides maintain maximal public positions while avoiding steps that would make future talks impossible. In practice, this is a pause sustained by caution rather than a settlement anchored in confidence.

For the broader region, the distinction matters urgently. Gulf states have no interest in becoming staging grounds for escalation. Public statements across the region have consistently emphasised de-escalation, restraint and conflict avoidance. But regional actors can facilitate, host and encourage; they cannot impose terms on either Washington or Tehran.

The Muscat talks did not fail. Neither did they succeed. They established that a channel exists, that both sides are willing to use it, and that direct contact between senior officials is possible.

But a channel is not a plan. The absence of war is not the presence of a deal. The period between Muscat and whatever comes next is a window in which miscalculation remains close to the surface, sustained only by the assumption that both sides are reading each other’s signals correctly.

The next round of talks will not produce an agreement. But it may show whether the two sides are building a floor beneath the standoff or simply postponing the moment when that floor gives way.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.