Region

MUSCAT, Oman — The United States wants a nuclear agreement "as soon as possible", Iran said after rare talks on Saturday, as US President Donald Trump threatens military action if they fail to reach a deal.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who briefly spoke face-to-face with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff during the indirect meeting in Oman, said the talks would resume next Saturday.

"The American side also said that a positive agreement was one that can be reached as soon as possible but that will not be easy and will require a willingness on both sides," Araghchi told Iranian state television.

"At today's meeting, I think we came very close to a basis for negotiation... Neither we nor the other party want fruitless negotiations, discussions for discussions' sake, time wasting or talks that drag on for ever," he added.

Oman's foreign minister acted as intermediary in the talks in Muscat, Iran said. The Americans had called for the meetings to be face-to-face.

However, the negotiators also spoke directly for "a few minutes", Iran's foreign ministry said. It said the talks were held "in a constructive and mutually respectful atmosphere".

The long-term adversaries, who have not had diplomatic relations for more than 40 years, are seeking a new nuclear deal after Trump pulled out of an earlier agreement during his first term in 2018.

Araghchi, a seasoned diplomat and key architect of the 2015 accord, and Witkoff, a real estate magnate, led the delegations in the highest-level Iran-US nuclear talks since the previous accord's collapse.

The two parties were in "separate halls" and were "conveying their views and positions to each other through the Omani foreign minister", Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X.

The process took place in a "friendly atmosphere", Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said.

Iran, weakened by Israel's pummelling of its allies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, is seeking relief from wide-ranging sanctions hobbling its economy.

Tehran has agreed to the meetings despite baulking at Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign of ramping up sanctions and repeated military threats.

Meanwhile the US, hand-in-glove with Iran's arch-enemy Israel, wants to stop Tehran from ever getting close to developing a nuclear bomb.

 Witkoff open to 'compromise' 

There were no visible signs of the high-level meeting at a luxury hotel in Muscat, the same venue where the 2015 agreement was struck when Barack Obama was US president.

Witkoff told The Wall Street Journal earlier that the US position starts with demanding that Iran completely dismantle its nuclear programme -- a view held by hardliners around Trump that few expect Iran to accept.

"That doesn't mean, by the way, that at the margin we're not going to find other ways to find compromise between the two countries," Witkoff told the newspaper.

"Where our red line will be, there can't be weaponisation of your nuclear capability," he added.

The talks were revealed in a surprise announcement by Trump during a White House appearance with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

Hours before they began, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: "I want Iran to be a wonderful, great, happy country. But they can't have a nuclear weapon."

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's adviser Ali Shamkhani said Iran was "seeking a real and fair agreement".

Saturday's meetings followed repeated threats of military action by both the US and Israel.

"If it requires military, we're going to have military," Trump said on Wednesday when asked what would happen if the talks fail.

'Survival of the regime' 

The 2015 deal that Trump abandoned aimed to make it practically impossible for Iran to build an atomic bomb, while at the same time allowing it to pursue a civil nuclear programme.

Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is only for civilian purposes, stepped up its activities after Trump withdrew from the agreement.

The latest International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had an estimated 274.8 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, nearing the weapons grade of 90 percent.

Karim Bitar, a Middle East Studies lecturer at Sciences Po university in Paris, said the Iranian government's very survival could be at stake.

"The one and only priority is the survival of the regime, and ideally, to get some oxygen, some sanctions relief, to get their economy going again, because the regime has become quite unpopular," he told AFP.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian sentenced as a teen for taking part in a knife attack against two Israelis was freed Thursday after spending more than nine years in jail, a lawyer said.

Ahmad Manasra, now 23, was just 13 when he carried out the attack in October 2015 in Israeli-occupied and annexed east Jerusalem.

"He was released today," said Nareman Shehadeh Zoabi, an attorney for rights group Adalah and part of a legal team representing him.

"His family met him and now the family is taking the time with him and to be able to stay quiet for some time alone with Ahmed," she told AFP.

Manasra was originally sentenced in 2016 to 12 years in prison, but his term was later reduced to nine and a half years by Israel's supreme court.

AFPTV footage on Thursday showed Manasra, wearing a surgical mask and with his hair closely cropped, at an Israeli security facility in Jerusalem alongside his father.

Between Manasra's conviction and sentencing, Israeli law was amended to allow civilian courts to convict children as young as 12 for "terrorist offences".

Manasra, an east Jerusalem resident, was the youngest Palestinian to be convicted by an Israeli civilian court at the time.

Zoabi, the lawyer at Adalah legal centre, said her team had worked to secure Manasra's early release in 2022 but failed to secure it.

Among other things, his health had declined drastically after he spent nearly two years in solitary confinement.

Rights group Amnesty International had also raised concerns at the time, warning of his deteriorating psychological condition.

"Ahmad Manasra's release today is a huge relief for him and for his family, but nothing can undo the years of injustice, abuse, trauma and ill-treatment he endured behind bars," Amnesty regional director Heba Morayef said in a statement on Thursday.

Manasra initially pleaded not guilty, saying he had intended to frighten the Israelis, not kill them.

ISTANBUL — Turkey and Israel have started talks aimed at easing tensions over Syria, officials from both sides said Thursday.

Israel has launched air strikes and ground incursions to keep Syrian forces away from its border. Turkey is a key backer of the Islamist-led coalition in Syria that toppled Bashar Al Assad in December.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed the talks in comments to CNN-Turk television late Wednesday.

While Turkey was carrying out "certain operations in Syria", there had to be a way of heading off conflict with Israel "which is flying its planes in that region -- just as we do with the Americans and the Russians", he said.

A Turkish defence ministry source said Thursday that the first technical meeting with Israel had taken place in Azerbaijan on Wednesday.

A statement from Israeli prime minister l Benjamin Netanyahu's office also confirmed the talks.

They had "agreed to continue on the path of dialogue in order to maintain regional stability", said the statement.

But Fidan, in his comments, said this did not mean the two sides were moving toward normalising ties strained over Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

Turkey has suspended all trade with Israel, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing Netanyahu of "state terror" and "genocide" in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump offered himself as a mediator between Israel and Turkey.

Speaking alongside key ally Netanyahu at the White House, Trump touted his "great relations" with Erdogan as an avenue for negotiations.

ISTANBUL — Turkish courts on Thursday ordered the release of at least 107 students arrested during massive protests against the jailing of Istanbul's popular mayor, a lawyer told AFP.

Nearly 2,000 people, including more than 300 students, have been arrested in a crackdown on the protests -- the largest demonstrations in Turkey in more than a decade -- after the March 19 arrest of mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on graft charges.

Two Istanbul courts ordered 107 students' release on Thursday, lawyer Ferhat Guzel told AFP. 

The court also lifted house arrests ordered for 25 students, he added.

"I am very happy, just like other mothers," she told AFP briefly. "We passed through really bad days".

Erdogan on Wednesday accused the opposition party of "darkening" the lives of young people. 

Some of the students were detained during clashes with police outside City Hall last month. 

"If the lives of those young people are darkened, it is again you, as the CHP, who darkened those lives," Erdogan said.

"You call the youth to the streets, have them attack the police, then you shamelessly shed crocodile tears," he added, pointing to CHP leader Ozgur Ozel.

"We will not let you exploit the youth of this country."

LONDON — UK-based lawyers said they have asked the British government to lift a ban on the Palestinian militant group Hamas, a petition that has drawn sharp criticism from opposition politicians.

The legal submission argues the ban contravenes Britain's human rights commitments, with the militants insisting on "the legitimacy of the struggle of the Palestinian people for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation."

The military wing of Hamas was designated a "terrorist group" by the UK in 2001. The United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terror group.

Hamas's proscription was extended in 2021 to include the political wing, with the group considered a "complex but single terrorist organisation", according to the government website.

In the UK, belonging to, encouraging and expressing support for a proscribed organisation, among other acts, are criminal offences.

The Home Office said it did not comment on proscription matters.

The submission to the UK interior ministry was announced by London-based firm Riverway Law on Wednesday. 

It added the right to resist "foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle, is moral, legitimate and explicitly enshrined in international law."

In retaliation, Israel vowed to crush Hamas and has relentlessly bombarded Gaza, with the death toll since the start of the war now at more than 50,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Riverway Law said it was instructed by Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official.

By banning Hamas "Britain is effectively denying the Palestinians the right to defend themselves", the lawyers said in a statement on X.

The submission argues that the proscription of Hamas is "disproportionate" because the group "does not pose any threat" to Britain's national security.

The plea says the ban goes against Britain's human rights duties, including under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) -- which has become a target of UK's political right since Britain left the European Union in 2020.

The application has drawn sharp criticism from opposition politicians, with shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel slamming the group as a "evil, Iranian-backed terrorist organisation".

"Those campaigning to end the proscription of Hamas fail to understanding the seriousness of the threats this terrorist organisation poses", Patel said in a statement.

NAIROBI — South Sudanese forces air dropped improvised incendiary weapons last month to kill nearly 60 people, including children, in a restive northeastern region, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

The young nation has long been plagued by violence but a recent uptick has seen forces allied to President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar clash in the Upper Nile State.

These have imperilled a 2018 peace deal which ended a bloody five-year civil war, and concerned international observers who fear a return to widespread bloodshed.

"Interviewees described the use of improvised incendiary weapons in at least four attacks in Nasir, Longechuk, and Ulang counties, Upper Nile state, which killed at least 58 people and burned others severely," Human Rights Watch said.

"The government's use of these weapons in populated areas may amount to war crimes," it said, urging the United Nations to call on Juba to "cease its unlawful attacks".

The monitor also called for the "urgent deployment of peacekeeping forces" in the affected areas.

The government did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

Drawing on interviews with civilians across the impacted areas, HRW said between March 16-19 least 21 people were killed in Longechuk county's Mathiang village.

During the same period, attacks also targeted Nasir town. "Two officials said that at least 22 people were killed and dozens of homes burned" HRW added.

In Kuich in Ulang county on March 21, HRW said "three witnesses describe seeing what appeared to be a propeller-driven aircraft drop incendiary substances in barrels."

That attack left 15 dead, including three children, four witnesses told HRW. Seven people were in critical condition as of March 30.

Witnesses described victims left with horrific injuries.

"Their black skin is coming out. One man who died at the hospital was burned even his teeth," a witness told HRW.

Tensions have risen in the Upper Nile State region where Kiir's allies have accused Machar's forces of fomenting unrest, saying they were in league with the White Army, a loose band of armed youths from the vice president's Nuer ethnic community.

The government has said previously it has conducted air strikes in the area.

Information minister Michael Makuei Lueth told reporters March 17 the attacks were part of "security operations".

He added: "If you as a civilian happen to be there... then there is nothing we can do."