MUSCAT, Oman — Negotiations between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program will return Saturday to the secluded sultanate of Oman, where experts on both sides will start hammering the technical details of any possible deal.

The talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions the U.S. has imposed on the Islamic Republic closing in on half a century of enmity. Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.

Neither Iran nor the U.S. have offered any explanation on why the talks will return to the Omani capital of Muscat, nestled in the Hajar Mountains. Oman has been a mediator between the countries. Last weekend’s talks in Rome offered a more-equal flight distance between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, who are leading the negotiations.

But Rome remains in mourning after the death of Pope Francis, whose funeral will be Saturday. And Iranian state television, in covering last weekend’s talks, complained at length on air about the “paparazzi” gathered across the street from the Omani Embassy in Rome’s Camilluccia neighborhood.

“As you can see, unlike the first round of talks where the presence of journalists was limited and the Omanis had special management in place to prevent a large and chaotic media presence from disrupting the negotiations, this time in Rome, Italy, that kind of control hasn’t been applied,” said Hosnieh Sadat Shobeiri, an Iranian state TV journalist in gray, all-encompassing chador.

“Because of the crowd we’re seeing here, with media outlets from various countries — including some that are anti-Iran — it’s possible that we’ll hear more conflicting reports and news aimed at disrupting the talks coming out of Rome compared to Oman.”

The Muscat talks come as Iran appears to have lined up Chinese and Russian support. Araghchi traveled to Moscow last week and this week visited Beijing.

On Thursday, Chinese, Iran and Russian representatives met the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog that likely will verify compliance with any accord like it did with Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. That deal included China and Russia, as well as France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

However, Iran has greatly restricted the IAEA’s inspections — leading to fears internationally that centrifuges and other nuclear material could be diverted.

The IAEA offered no readout from the talks, but China’s state-run Xinhua news agency on Friday described the three nations as saying the agency has “the necessary potential and expertise to contribute constructively to this process.”

“China, Russia and Iran emphasized that political and diplomatic engagement based on mutual respect remains the only viable and practical path for resolving the Iran nuclear issue,” the report said. It added that China respects Iran’s “right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

The Trump administration has kept France, Germany and the U.K. out of its direct negotiations with Iran, something similarly reflected in Witkoff’s negotiations with Russia over ending its war on Ukraine.

Araghchi meanwhile has said he’s open to visiting Berlin, London and Paris to discuss the negotiations.

“The ball is now in the E3’s court,” Araghchi wrote on the social platform X on Thursday, using an acronym for the countries. “They have an opportunity to do away with the grip of Special Interest groups and forge a different path. How we act at this critical junction is likely to define the foreseeable future.”

The U.S. technical team was expected to arrive in Oman on Friday ahead of the talks Saturday. They’ll be led by Michael Anton, the director of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s policy planning staff. Anton does not have the nuclear policy experience of those who led America’s efforts in the 2015 talks. However, he was an early supporter of Trump, describing the 2016 election as a “charge the cockpit or you die” vote.

“A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto,” Anton wrote. “With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.”

He also criticized “Iran sycophancy” in the same essay.

Rubio, speaking on a podcast released this week, also kept up a Trump line that Iran needed to stop its enrichment of uranium entirely.

“If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries can have one, and that is they import enriched material,” Rubio said.

But Iran has insisted that keeping its enrichment is key. Witkoff also has muddied the issue by first suggesting in a television interview that Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67%, then later saying that all enrichment must stop.

Meanwhile, one more wildcard is Israel, whose devastating war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip grinds on. Trump initially announced the Iran talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. But Israel, which for years has targeted Iran’s nuclear program with attacks on its facilities and scientists, has kept open the possibility of airstrikes to destroy Tehran’s enrichment sites.

On Monday, Israel’s military conducted drills preparing for possible new Iranian missile attacks, the country’s public broadcaster KAN reported.

“Our security services are on high alert given past instances of attempted sabotage and assassination operations designed to provoke a legitimate response,” Araghchi wrote Wednesday on X.

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Talks took place Saturday afternoon in Oman

Sanctions relief and enrichment remain top issues

SEOUL, South Korea — The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Wednesday mocked Washington and its Asian allies for what she called their “daydream” of denuclearizing the North, insisting that the country will never give up its nuclear weapons program.

The statement by Kim Yo Jong, one of the country’s top foreign policy officials, was in response to a meeting last week between the top diplomats of the United States, South Korea and Japan where they reaffirmed their commitment to push for the North’s denuclearization.

Noting that North Korea’s goals for nuclear weapons expansion are enshrined in its constitution, she insisted that any external discussions of denuclearization constitute “the most hostile act” and amount to a denial of her country’s sovereignty.

“If the U.S. and its vassal forces continue to insist on anachronistic ‘denuclearization’ … it will only give unlimited justness and justification to the advance of the DPRK aspiring after the building of the strongest nuclear force for self-defense,” she said in comments released by state media, using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. She said North Korea’s nuclear weapons status can “never be reversed by any physical strength or sly artifice.”

Tensions in the regions have increased as Kim Jong Un continues to flaunt his military nuclear capabilities and align with Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. Kim is ignoring calls by Seoul and Washington to resume denuclearization talks.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would reach out to Kim again to revive diplomacy, but the North has not responded to that offer. Trump and Kim met three times during Trump’s first term, but their diplomacy quickly collapsed over disagreements about ending U.S.-led sanctions in return for North Korea taking steps to wind down its nuclear and missile programs.

Kim’s foreign policy priority is now Russia, which he has supplied with weapons and troops to help prolong its warfighting in Ukraine. Seoul fears that Kim may receive economic assistance and advanced technology to develop his arsenal in exchange for its military supporting Russia.

Kim Yo Jong’s statement came a day after South Korea fired warning shots to repel a group of North Korean soldiers who had crossed the border. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said about 10 North Korean soldiers, some carrying weapons, violated the military demarcation line in the eastern section of the border. When South Korea issued warnings and fired warning shots, they did not return fire and returned to North Korea.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether acting president Han Duck-soo discussed the North Korean nuclear threat with U.S. President Donald Trump during a telephone conversation on Tuesday.

Trump said in a social media post that the two leaders discussed tariffs, trade and Seoul’s payment for what he called the “big time” military protection the United States provides to South Korea. There are concerns in Seoul that Trump might push South Korea to pay significantly more of the costs for the some 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in the country.

Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that DOGE’s blind cost cutting will put communities at risk.

Three U.S. officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration were abruptly laid off late Thursday, with some losing access to email before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning to find they were locked out. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

One of the hardest hit offices was the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, which saw about 30% of the cuts. Those employees work on reassembling warheads, one of the most sensitive jobs across the nuclear weapons enterprise, with the highest levels of clearance.

The hundreds let go at NNSA were part of a DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees.

“The DOGE people are coming in with absolutely no knowledge of what these departments are responsible for,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, referencing Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team. “They don’t seem to realize that it’s actually the department of nuclear weapons more than it is the Department of Energy.”

By late Friday night, the agency’s acting director, Teresa Robbins, issued a memo rescinding the firings for all but 28 of those hundreds of fired staff members.

“This letter serves as formal notification that the termination decision issued to you on Feb. 13, 2025 has been rescinded, effective immediately,” said the memo, which was obtained by the AP.

The accounts from the three officials contradict an official statement from the Department of Energy, which said fewer than 50 National Nuclear Security Administration staffers were let go, calling them “probationary employees” who “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”

But that wasn’t the case. The firings prompted one NNSA senior staffer to post a warning and call to action.

“This is a pivotal moment. We must decide whether we are truly committed to leading on the world stage or if we are content with undermining the very systems that secure our nation’s future,” deputy division director Rob Plonski posted to LinkedIn. “Cutting the federal workforce responsible for these functions may be seen as reckless at best and adversarily opportunistic at worst.”

While some of the Energy Department employees who were fired dealt with energy efficiency and the effects of climate change, issues not seen as priorities by the Trump administration, many others dealt with nuclear issues, even if they didn’t directly work on weapons programs. This included managing massive radioactive waste sites and ensuring the material there doesn’t further contaminate nearby communities.

That incudes the Savannah River National Laboratory in Jackson, South Carolina; the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington state, where workers secure 177 high-level waste tanks from the site’s previous work producing plutonium for the atomic bomb; and the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, a Superfund contamination site where much of the early work on the Manhattan Project was done, among others.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, both Democrats, called the firings last week “utterly callous and dangerous.”

The NNSA staff who had been reinstated could not all be reached after they were fired, and some were reconsidering whether to return to work, given the uncertainty created by DOGE.

Many federal employees who had worked on the nation’s nuclear programs had spent their entire careers there, and there was a wave of retirements in recent years that cost the agency years of institutional knowledge.

But it’s now in the midst of a major $750 billion nuclear weapons modernization effort — including new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, new stealth bombers and new submarine-launched warheads. In response, the labs have aggressively hired over the past few years: In 2023, 60% of the workforce had been there five years or less.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the firings could disrupt the day-to-day workings of the agency and create a sense of instability over the nuclear program both at home and abroad.

“I think the signal to U.S. adversaries is pretty clear: throw a monkey wrench in the whole national security apparatus and cause disarray,” he said. “That can only benefit the adversaries of this country.”