Iran and Oman have been reportedly instructed upfront that US particular envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner would go to the USS Abraham Lincoln on Saturday.
CNN on Sunday reported that Tehran and Muscat received advance discover of the go to — a transfer that apparently signaled the persistent risk of US navy motion towards Iran if it didn’t comply with a deal to curb their nuclear program.
In response to Channel 12, Tehran was notified earlier than the go to in order that the Iranians wouldn’t be angered if caught unaware.
Witkoff and Kushner, who led the US delegation’s talks with Iran in Oman on Friday, visited the plane service on the invitation of the US Central Command chief, Adm. Brad Cooper.
America and Iran reopened negotiations after the earlier nuclear talks between the 2 nations have been suspended resulting from Israel’s 12-day struggle with Iran in June 2025, which ended with a US strike on a number of Iranian nuclear websites.
Western nations suspect Iran is searching for to accumulate a nuclear bomb. Iran has denied searching for to accumulate nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, it has enriched uranium to ranges that haven’t any peaceable utility, obstructed worldwide inspectors from checking its nuclear amenities, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. Previous to the June struggle, Israel mentioned Iran had lately taken steps towards weaponization.
The specter of struggle continues to hover over the negotiations, whilst Trump known as the talks “excellent” and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on social media that they “represent a step ahead.” Iran has repeatedly dominated out accepting Washington’s key demand that it quit uranium enrichment.
Following Friday’s first spherical in Oman, Trump signed an government order calling for the “imposition of tariffs” on nations nonetheless doing enterprise with Iran regardless of US sanctions.
The US additionally introduced new sanctions towards quite a few delivery entities and vessels, aimed toward curbing Iran’s oil exports.
In a transparent warning towards navy motion, a brand new billboard overlooking Tehran’s Palestine Sq., which popped up on Sunday, threatened Tel Aviv with missile hearth, displaying a map of the town’s metro space under the Hebrew phrases, “Below raining missiles, it’s a small space!”
A caption under that in English learn, “You begin… We end it!”
⚡️#BREAKING Message from Tehran: New threatening check in Hebrew unveiled in Palestine Sq. pic.twitter.com/8SiXZ8aM2T
— Warfare Monitor (@WarMonitors) February 8, 2026
Within the billboard, that map appeaed atop a desk with a crimson button bearing the phrase “FIRE” in English, together with a walkie-talkie, and fashions of a airplane and missiles.
Iran has posted photographs threatening Israel on the sq. up to now, together with a clock purportedly counting down towards Israel’s destruction.
Throughout the Israel-Iran struggle final June, Iran fired over 500 ballistic missiles and round 1,100 drones at Israel.
Talks between Washington and Tehran got here amid an enormous US navy buildup within the area within the wake of Iran’s brutal crackdown on protests that started in late December, pushed by financial grievances.
Authorities in Iran have acknowledged that 3,117 folks have been killed within the current protests, publishing on Sunday an inventory of two,986 names, most of whom they mentioned have been members of the safety forces and harmless bystanders.
Worldwide organizations and media have put the toll far greater, probably within the tens of 1000’s.
The US-based Human Rights Activists Information Company (HRANA), which has stored a operating toll for the reason that onset of the protests, says it has verified 6,961 deaths, primarily of protesters, and has one other 11,630 instances beneath investigation. It has additionally counted greater than 51,000 arrests.
Nobel winner sentenced to 6 years in jail
Amid the nation’s crackdown on anti-regime activism, an Iranian court docket sentenced Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi to a six-year jail time period, her lawyer instructed AFP on Sunday.
“She has been sentenced to 6 years in jail for gathering and collusion to commit crimes,” lawyer Mostafa Nili mentioned, including that she had additionally obtained a two-year ban on leaving the nation.
Mohammadi additionally obtained a one-and-a-half-year jail sentence for propaganda actions and was sentenced to be exiled for 2 years to the town of Khosf within the japanese province of South Khorasan, the lawyer said.
She gained the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 in recognition of her activism. Over the previous quarter-century, Mohammadi, 53, has been repeatedly tried and jailed for her vocal campaigning towards Iran’s use of capital punishment and the necessary costume code for ladies.
She has spent a lot of the previous decade behind bars and has not seen her twin youngsters, who stay in Paris, since 2015.
Iranian authorities additionally arrested three reformist figures, together with the pinnacle of Iran’s Reform Entrance coalition, Azar Mansouri, the native Fars information company reported, alleging that they had ties to Israel and the US.
“Azar Mansouri, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh and Mohsen Aminzadeh have been arrested by safety and judicial establishments,” the company mentioned.
“The accusations towards these people embody concentrating on nationwide unity, taking a stance towards the structure, coordination with enemy propaganda, selling give up, diverting political teams and creating secret subversive mechanisms,” it added.
The judiciary’s Mizan On-line information company additionally reported that a number of folks have been arrested, however didn’t determine them.
“After finishing the investigation into the actions and actions of some vital political components supporting the Zionist regime and America, 4 members of this group have been charged with crimes, and the lively components working in favor of the Zionist regime and America have been arrested,” Mizan mentioned.
Mansouri, 60, was an adviser to reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.
Following the protests that began in Iran in December, she posted on Instagram that “when all avenues to be heard are closed, protest takes to the streets,” including {that a} “crackdown is the worst method to cope with protesters.”
Referring to the deaths of 1000’s of individuals throughout the protests, she later mentioned, “We don’t have entry to the media, however we are saying to the grieving households: You aren’t alone.”
She added that “no energy, no justification, and no time can cleanse this nice catastrophe.”
Mansouri was beforehand arrested after the protests that adopted the 2009 Iranian presidential election, and was sentenced to 3 years in jail for disrupting public order and propaganda towards the state, amongst different costs.
In 2022, she was charged once more and subsequently sentenced to at least one yr and two months in jail.
Since June 2023, she has been the chief of Iran’s Reform Entrance, an umbrella group of reformists who historically name for extra social freedoms and the institution of a civil society.
Asgharzadeh is a former member of parliament and Aminzadeh is a former deputy at Iran’s Overseas Ministry.
