Iranian and US negotiators meet in Oman
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump is seeking to curb Tehran's nuclear and missile programme; he has threatened to use military force if Tehran doesn't make big concessions.
Also in the programme: Venezuela's parliament takes the next step towards an amnesty for political prisoners; and how babies can anticipate rhythmic surprises in music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.
(Photo: Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is welcomed by an Omani official upon his arrival in Muscat, Oman, on February 6, 2026. Credit: Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA via REUTERS)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.4 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London. |
| 0:15.2 | I'm Tim Franks. We're beginning under the warm blue skies of the Gulf, the place that seems to have become the go-to location for some of the toughest geopolitical negotiations around the ones that aren't just naughty, but involve massive military peril. |
| 0:30.9 | And today, in Oman, we've got the start of talks between the US and Iran, talks about, well, that's one of the points of contention, |
| 0:39.8 | what they're actually about. Is it just Iran's nuclear program? Difficult enough. |
| 0:45.2 | Or also Iran's long-range missiles? And also the fact that they're being held with the US, |
| 0:51.7 | having sent dozens more military aircraft and a bristling carrier support |
| 0:55.5 | group to the region. And just in case that message wasn't clear enough, this was President Trump |
| 1:00.9 | on Wednesday talking to NBC's Tom Lammis. Should the Supreme Leader in Iran be worried right now? |
| 1:07.7 | I would say he should be very worried, yeah, he should be. |
| 1:11.6 | So what are both sides want, or at least what's the minimum they might be prepared to leave with? |
| 1:16.8 | Kirsten-Fontenrose is a specialist on the region at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. |
| 1:22.2 | Before that, she was senior director for the Gulf at the U.S. National Security Council in the first Trump administration. |
| 1:29.0 | The U.S. team can't leave these talks without addressing all of the files they came in to talk about. |
| 1:35.0 | They can't make it just a nuclear discussion, even though Iran keeps trying to frame it as such. |
| 1:40.7 | The president has promised more than that since the beginning and the U.S. position has |
| 1:45.0 | consistently been that they need to address, yes, nuclear, but also missiles, also proxies, |
| 1:50.5 | also drone program. And with the president saying after the strikes over the summer, |
| 1:56.6 | that Iran's nuclear program had been crippled, what would he have to gain from only nuclear talks |
| 2:02.0 | now? He wouldn't waste his negotiator's time with only that. So the U.S. is going to go in with |
| 2:08.1 | very different expectation than Iran is. Iran is coming in with two sort of dangerous |
| 2:14.1 | assumptions as well. First, that the president of the U.S. will do almost anything to |
... |
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