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Iran says it wants ‘fair agreement’ as nuclear talks with US begin in Oman
Iran and the United States have begun talks in Oman over Teheran’s nuclear programme – the highest level meeting between the two nations since 2018.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state television his country wanted a “fair agreement”, with his spokesperson saying he did not expect talks to last long.
President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a previous nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers in 2018, and has long said he would make a “better” deal.
It is unclear if the two delegations will sit in the same room, but the talks are seen as an important first step to establishing whether a deal can be done, as well as a framework for negotiations.
Araghchi has repeatedly emphasised that indirect talks were best at this stage.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, who is leading the US delegation, has only spoken of meeting face-to-face.
But the most important issue is what kind of deal each side would accept.
Trump sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader via the United Arab Emirates last month, saying he wanted a deal to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to avert possible military strikes by the US and Israel.
Iran hopes a deal to limit, but not dismantle, its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
“Our intention is to reach a fair and honourable agreement from an equal position, and if the other side also comes from the same position, then hopefully there will be a chance for an initial understanding that will lead to a path of negotiations,” Araghchi said.
He added that the team that came with him was made up of experts “knowledgeable in this particular field and who have a history of negotiating on this issue”.
An unnamed source in Oman told the news agency Reuters that the talks would also seek to de-escalate regional tensions and secure prisoner exchanges.
Trump disclosed the upcoming talks during a visit by Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Monday. The Israeli prime minister said on Tuesday that both leaders had agreed “Iran will not have nuclear weapons”.
Trump has warned that the US would use military force if a deal was not reached, and Iran has repeatedly said it will not negotiate under pressure.[BBC]
The US president told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that this weekend’s meeting in Oman would be “very big”, while also warning that it would “be a very bad day for Iran” if the talks were unsuccessful.
Iran insists its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and that it will never seek to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.
However, since Trump pulled out of the 2015 agreement – which expires later this year – Iran has increasingly breached restrictions imposed by the existing nuclear deal in retaliation for crippling US sanctions reinstated seven years ago, and has stockpiled enough highly-enriched uranium to make several bombs.
Witkoff has also been involved in peace talks on the Russia-Ukraine war, meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday.
[BBC]
Donald Trump had been warning for months that a Supreme Court decision like this would be catastrophic.
If the court curtailed his ability to impose these tariffs, he had said, it would be an “economic and national security disaster”.
A six-justice majority of the Supreme Court, in ruling against the president on Friday, didn’t care much about his concerns.
Congress, not the president, has the power to impose tariffs, the justices ruled. And nothing in the law that the president based his tariffs on, the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, delegated such sweeping powers to Trump.
The court’s decision represents a rare check on this president’s broad use of executive authority.
A majority of the justices over the past year have shown a willingness to allow Trump to press ahead with his agenda, particularly on immigration and reshaping the federal government, even as legal challenges work their way through the court system.
This case, which was fast-tracked through the court system as an emergency, slams the door on one such expansive use of presidential authority.
With several other major cases involving controversial uses of executive power, such as efforts to end birthright citizenship and to dismiss a Federal Reserve governor based on alleged improprieties, this may not be Trump’s only setback in the coming months.
At the very least, this decision weakens Trump’s hand when trying to force other nations to make concessions to the US and tarnishes his veneer of invincibility.
Weakness begets weakness, and America’s trading partners may be emboldened to take a tougher line with the US now that the president’s tariff powers have been curtailed.
It also opens up the possibility that the Trump administration may have to give back much of the tariff revenue it collected over the past year.
While the justices left this thorny issue to be decided by a lower court, Brett Kavanaugh in his dissent warned that the process is likely to be a “mess”.
The Trump administration had plenty of time to prepare for Friday’s decision.
Supreme Court precedent, and the attitude of many of the justices when the case was argued in court last November, indicated that an adverse outcome for the president was quite possible.
Jamieson Greer, Trump’s top trade adviser, said last month that the White House has “a lot of different options” on how to proceed if the tariffs were struck down.
“The reality,” he said, “is the president is going to have tariffs as part of his trade policy going forward.”
The other options that could be at Trump’s disposal are more limited, however.
They require government agencies to produce detailed reports to justify imposing tariffs, and they have limits on their scope and duration.
Gone are the days when the president could threaten, or enact, triple-digit tariffs with the wave of a pen or the click of a Truth Social post.
New tariffs will require a longer lead-in time before they are imposed.
That could limit the kind of economic disruption that took place when the president announced his expansive “Liberation Day” tariffs last year, and would give other nations more time to prepare their responses.
If Trump wants to restore his free hand to impose new tariffs, he could always ask Congress for the kind of explicit authorisation that the Supreme Court has said is necessary. But with narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and midterm elections looming, the success of such a move seems unlikely.
In fact, some of Trump’s conservative allies in Congress may be breathing somewhat easier with this decision.
The president’s tariffs – and the costs they have imposed on consumers – have been unpopular among many Americans. Republican candidates in battleground states and congressional districts would have been open to Democratic attacks for supporting Trump’s policies.
That area of vulnerability has been reduced for now.
Friday’s decision will set up an awkward moment on Tuesday, when Trump delivers his annual State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress. Traditionally, many of the Supreme Court justices sit in the front row of the chamber.
The president, after spending months issuing dire warnings against the court, could stand eye-to-eye with the justices who eroded one of the key pillars of Trump’s second-term agenda.
41: That’s the number of times New Zealand and Pakistan faced each other across formats in a 30-month period between October 2022 and April 2025. Twenty four of those meetings came in T20Is, with the sides compensating for a tour which New Zealand abandoned in 2021, citing security concerns by piling on as many bilateral engagements as is it was possible to fit in a calendar.
Aside from a T20 World Cup semi-final in Sydney in 2022, none of those games mattered as much as the one in Colombo on February 21. Both sides have much convincing to do as credible title-contenders after a group stage which saw them ease past lower-ranked teams while getting thumped by the one powerhouse they played. In New Zealand’s case, it was South Africa who gave them a battering, while Pakistan were left similarly bruised by an Indian side that has otherwise not quite hit its straps.
For New Zealand, the biggest challenge is the switch of venue. They played all of their games in Chennai and Ahmedabad, and relied on a balance between seam and spin that leaned towards the former, with Mitchell Santner the only frontline spinner and Rachin Ravindra or Glenn Phillips chipping in with the odd over. In Colombo, that balance is likely to reverse as the slower bowlers take centre stage, something Pakistan have deployed so effectively in most of their matches.
Santner’s men have not tinkered much with the batting order, which has held up remarkably well for the most part. Against weaker oppositions, some combination of openers Finn Allen and Tim Seifert, or top order batters Ravindra and Phillips, have showcased enough firepower to ease home. Opposition attacks have also struggled to puncture their way through, with New Zealand losing just 14 wickets in four games, the second fewest for any side in this tournament.
Unlike New Zealand, Pakistan know this city intimately well by now. Three of their four games may have been played at the SSC – the other Colombo ground – but their match against India here at the RPS was, like Saturday’s contest, also an evening game, giving them a valuable read into the pitch and conditions. It is the venue they used more spin on than any other, with captain Salman Ali Agha suggesting that would only continue in the Super Eight.
Pakistan’s top order has the explosiveness to blow teams away, even if they have struggled to translate that potential with form for Saim Ayub. Sahibzada Farhan at the other end has taken on the mantle for powerplay run-scoring as runs for Agha having dried up before the game against Namibia, and Babar Azam no nearer to maximising his ability. That fragility too quickly brings up a middle order comprising too many bowling allrounders or the untested Khawaja Nafay, a situation that led to a near-defeat against the Netherlands and a decisive defeat against India.
This is two teams situated among the middle powers of this World Cup, eager to demonstrate they’re better than what they managed against true superpowers like India and South Africa. What matters, ultimately, is which of them can show they’re better than the middle power they face off against on Saturday.
Jacob Duffy takes a wicket against Pakistan every 10.5 deliveries. Among bowlers with at least 15 scalps against Pakistan, no one in the world matches that strike rate. Eighteen of his 62 wickets have come against Saturday’s opponents, at an average of 12.77, comfortably the best amongst teams he has played more than five games against. The catch, however, is that all but one of those wickets have come in New Zealand, in conditions very different to what’ll be in front of him at the Premadasa in Colombo. But Hardik Pandya, who boasts an almost equally impressive record against Pakistan, did not find this very venue an impediment against bowling effectiveness against Pakistan. Duffy will hope to have similar success.
Abrar Ahmed was, arguably harshly, dropped against Namibia after an off-day against India. But his longer-term form makes it unlikely he will stay out of the side again in the raised stakes of the Super Eight. He was Pakistan’s second-highest wicket-taker in 2025, and at the Asia Cup last year, his economy rate of 5.36 in spin-friendly conditions was by far the most miserly in the tournament. All of that points to the India game being an aberration, with Pakistan needing him at his best for the business stages. He was Pakistan’s best bowler in the two series against Sri Lanka and Australia prior to this World Cup, and how he responds to the wake-up call of his axing may go some distance to determining the fate of Saturday’s game.
Abrar Ahmed is expected to come back into the side, but Pakistan will not want to make wholesale changes to a team that delivered so handsomely in their must-win game against Namibia.
Pakistan: Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha (capt) Babar Azam, Khawaja Nafay, Shadab Khan, Usman Khan (wk) Mohammad Nawaz/Faheem Ashraf, Salman Mirza, Usman Tariq, Abrar Ahmed
New Zealand will take a late call on Lockie Ferguson, who gets into Sri Lanka on Friday night after being granted paternity leave. It will be interesting to see how New Zealand manage to incorporate more spin into their XI to reconcile with Sri Lankan conditions. That might bring Ish Sodhi in for his first game this World Cup.
New Zealand: Tim Seifert (wk), Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner (capt), Jimmy Neesham, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi Jacob Duffy
[Cricinfo]
Oman 104 in 16.2 overs (Jatinder Singh 17, Karan Sonavale 12, Hammad Mirza 16, Wasim Ali 32; Marcus Stoinis 1-16, Nathan Ellis 1-14, Adam Zampa 4-21, Glenn Maxwell 2-13, Xavier Bartlett 2-27) lost to Australia 108/1 in 9.4 overs (Mitchell Marsh 64*, Travis Head 32, Josh Inglis 12*; Shakeel Ahmed 1-29) by 9 wickets
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