Chantal Da Silva reports on world news for NBC News Digital and is based in London.
Iran was jolted by resurgent anti-government protests over the weekend, as the United States sought to build pressure on Tehran to accede to its demands ahead of new nuclear talks amid a massive American military buildup.
Iranian state news agencies reported student demonstrations at five universities in the capital and one in the city of Mashhad. Large crowds rallied outside the Amir Kabir University of Technology in Tehran, according to video geolocated by NBC News that circulated on social media Sunday. The video does not appear to have circulated before Sunday but NBC News has not been able to pinpoint when exactly it was taken. They are the first known protests to have erupted since the anti-government unrest that swept the country last month and saw thousands of people killed in a brutal crackdown, according to rights groups. The U.S. has held the threat of military action over the regime in the wake of those demonstrations, which marked the biggest flare-up of domestic dissent since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. But President Donald Trump has also pursued negotiations over Iran's nuclear program, entertaining diplomacy even as he masses a daunting military force in the Middle East. Trump's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said Saturday that the president was “curious” as to why Iran had not changed course in the face of this buildup. 'He's curious as to why they haven't — I don't want to use the word 'capitulated' — but why they haven't capitulated,' Witkoff said in an interview with Fox News’ “My View with Lara Trump.” 'Why under this sort of pressure with the amount of sea power, naval power that we have over there, why they haven’t come to us and said, ‘We profess that we don’t want a weapon'?' he said. The USS Gerald R. Ford is en route to become the second American aircraft carrier in the region, where the U.S. has been gathering air defenses, warships and submarines. Officials signaled in a meeting last week that all U.S. military forces required for possible action would be in place by mid-March, a senior administration official told NBC News, though Trump has threatened possible action sooner than that. New talks are scheduled for Thursday, according to the country that brokered previous rounds of indirect negotiations. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said in a post on X Sunday that talks were confirmed for Thursday in Geneva “with a positive push to go the extra mile towards finalizing the deal.” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian offered some optimism Sunday, suggesting the latest talks had 'yielded encouraging signals.' 'Iran is committed to peace and stability in the region,' he said in a post on X. However, he warned that Tehran continued to 'closely monitor U.S. actions and have made all necessary preparations for any potential scenario.' Addressing the U.S. threat of military action in a news conference Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Islamic Republic would 'never be influenced by threats' and would 'insist on Iran’s national interests.' He added that there was 'no such thing as a limited attack,' after Trump confirmed he was considering a more limited initial strike to force Tehran into concessions. Any 'act of aggression' would be met with a firm response, Araghchi said. 'At the same time that we are in the negotiation room, our military forces will be more alert.' Araghchi said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “Face The Nation” that a new meeting would “probably” take place Thursday, adding that he hoped to prepare a “fast deal.” “I think we’re still very much in a wait and see kind of mode,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. “We’re lurching between the possibility of strikes and the possibility of a deal and I don’t really have a feeling right now one way or the other,” she told NBC News in a phone interview Monday. It will take a “real willingness to compromise from both parties” and in a “timely manner” in order to avoid military escalation, Vakil added. As the prospect of a major attack by the U.S. and Israel raised fears of a new conflict in the Middle East, regional powers expressed outrage after the U.S. Ambassador to Israel suggested the country had a biblical right to take over swaths of territory. “It would be fine if they took it all, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today,” Mike Huckabee said during an interview with podcaster Tucker Carlson posted to YouTube on Friday. Huckabee clarified that this was not on the table as 'they're not asking to take all that,' but his comments sparked outrage, with the foreign ministries of over a dozen Arab and Muslim nations expressing their “strong condemnation and profound concern” in a joint statement and issuing a “categorical rejection of such dangerous and inflammatory remarks.” Iran warned the comments could further “embolden” Israel in “illegal measures against Palestinians as well as its constant aggression against the nations of the region.”
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