Iran stepped up its continuing crackdown on dissent on Monday, arresting more people while holding the door open to Washington for further nuclear negotiations.

The arrests — including that of Javad Emam, the spokesperson for the country’s main reformist coalition — came after Iranian and US officials held talks in Oman that both sides painted as positive. And they came on the eve of a visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where he will reportedly brief US President Donald Trump about Israeli intelligence on Iran.

Weeks after repressing a wave of protests with a deadly crackdown in which many thousands were reported killed, following one of the greatest challenges to the regime’s authority since it came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran has taken a two-track approach.

It is rounding up and jailing perceived critics, while at the same time pursuing a potential diplomatic opening with the Trump administration. On Monday, it floated possible concessions on its stockpile of enriched uranium.

After heaping more jail time on Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, Iran on Monday arrested Hossein Karoubi, the son of prominent dissident Mehdi Karoubi. A spokesperson for the Reformist Front coalition told local media on Monday that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had arrested the group’s spokesman Emam.

Emam was one of at least five Reformist Front figures to be detained, alongside several activists and filmmakers for co-signing a protest statement.

Iran’s government has claimed that the protests were “riots” fueled by its chief adversaries, Israel and the United States. It has threatened to attack Israel and US targets if Trump follows through on his threats to attack Iran over the crackdown and over its nuclear program.

On Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for “resolve” ahead of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution this week.

Since the revolution, “foreign powers have always sought to restore the previous situation,” Khamenei said in a televised address, referring to the period when Iran was under the rule of Shah Reza Pahlavi and dependent on the United States.

“National power is less about missiles and aircraft and more about the will and........

© The Times of Israel