{"id":201385,"date":"2026-02-23T22:21:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T22:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/iran-hit-by-resurgent-protests-as-u-s-builds-pressure-ahead-of-new-nuclear-talks-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T22:21:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T22:21:18","slug":"iran-hit-by-resurgent-protests-as-u-s-builds-pressure-ahead-of-new-nuclear-talks-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/iran-hit-by-resurgent-protests-as-u-s-builds-pressure-ahead-of-new-nuclear-talks-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran hit by resurgent protests as U.S. builds pressure ahead of new nuclear talks – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

news Alerts
There are no new alerts at this time
Iran was jolted by resurgent anti-government protests<\/a> over the weekend, as Washington sought to build pressure on Tehran to accede to its demands ahead of new nuclear talks amid a massive American military buildup<\/a>.
Iranian state news agencies reported student demonstrations at five universities in the capital and one in the city of Mashhad over the weekend, with fresh protests also reported Monday. 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<\/a> last month and saw thousands of people killed <\/a>in a brutal crackdown, according to rights groups.
The United States 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<\/a> has also pursued negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, entertaining diplomacy even as he masses a daunting military force in the Middle East.
Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff <\/a>said Saturday that the president was \u201ccurious\u201d as to why Iran had not changed course in the face of this buildup.
\u201cHe\u2019s curious as to why they haven\u2019t \u2014 I don\u2019t want to use the word \u2018capitulated\u2019 \u2014 but why they haven\u2019t capitulated,\u201d Witkoff said in an interview with Fox News\u2019 \u201cMy View with Lara Trump.\u201d
\u201cWhy under this sort of pressure, with the amount of sea power, naval power that we have over there, why they haven\u2019t come to us and said, \u2018We profess that we don\u2019t want a weapon\u2019?\u201d he said.
The USS Gerald R. Ford is en route to become the second American aircraft carrier<\/a> in the region, where the U.S. has been gathering air defenses, warships and submarines<\/a>.
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<\/a> sooner than that.
New talks are scheduled for Thursday, according to the country that brokered previous rounds of indirect negotiations.
Oman\u2019s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, said in a post<\/a> on X on Sunday that talks were confirmed for Thursday in Geneva \u201cwith a positive push to go the extra mile towards finalizing the deal.\u201d
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian <\/a>offered some optimism Sunday, suggesting the latest talks had \u201cyielded encouraging signals.\u201d
\u201cIran is committed to peace and stability in the region,\u201d he said in a post<\/a> on X. However, he warned that Tehran continued to \u201cclosely monitor U.S. actions and have made all necessary preparations for any potential scenario.\u201d
Addressing the U.S. threat of military action in a news conference Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the Islamic Republic would “never be influenced by threats” and would “insist on Iran\u2019s 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, he said. “At the same time that we are in the negotiation room, our military forces will be more alert.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi <\/strong>separately said in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS\u2019 \u201cFace The Nation\u201d that a new meeting would \u201cprobably\u201d take place Thursday, adding that he hoped to prepare a \u201cfast deal.\u201d
\u201cI think we\u2019re still very much in a wait-and-see kind of mode,\u201d said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
\u201cWe\u2019re lurching between the possibility of strikes and the possibility of a deal and I don\u2019t really have a feeling right now one way or the other,\u201d she told NBC News in a phone interview Monday. It will take a \u201creal willingness to compromise from both parties\u201d and in a \u201ctimely manner\u201d 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, non-emergency U.S. government personnel and eligible family members were ordered to leave the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, a senior State Department official confirmed Monday.
\u201cWe continuously assess the security environment, and based on our latest review, we determined it prudent to reduce our footprint to essential personnel,\u201d the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said.
The U.S. Embassy remains operational with core staff in place according to the official who described the action as a \u201ctemporary measure,\u201d to ensure the safety of U.S. personnel while maintaining the ability to operate and assist American citizens.
The order came after regional powers expressed outrage after the U.S. ambassador suggested Israel had a biblical right<\/a> to take over swaths of territory in the Middle East.
\u201cIt would be fine if they took it all, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about here today,\u201d Mike Huckabee said during an interview with podcaster Tucker Carlson <\/a>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 more than a dozen Arab and Muslim nations expressing their \u201cstrong condemnation and profound concern\u201d in a joint statement and issuing a \u201ccategorical rejection of such dangerous and inflammatory remarks.\u201d
Iran warned the comments could further \u201cembolden\u201d Israel in \u201cillegal measures against Palestinians as well as its constant aggression against the nations of the region.\u201d
CORRECTION: <\/strong>(Feb. 23, 2026 11:00 a.m.) A previous version of this story incorrectly attributed comments made by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Chantal Da Silva reports on world news for NBC News Digital and is based in London.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeIran was jolted by resurgent anti-government protests over the weekend, as Washington 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-201385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}