Indirect talks between the United States and Iran resumed on Tuesday in Switzerland, Iranian state media said, with the Middle East on edge over the possibility of an American attack should negotiations collapse.
The stakes for the talks are high but they are on tenuous ground. Iran insists the negotiations are strictly limited to its nuclear program, even as U.S. officials have said they will push to curb the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support of militias across the region.
The negotiations are being hosted in Geneva by Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who mediated a previous round of talks in the Arab country earlier this month. Omani officials will shuttle between the two sides at the Omani ambassador’s residence, according to the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Esmail Baghaei.
“The exchange of messages through the Omani side has effectively begun,” Mr. Baghaei told IRNA, the Iranian state news agency.
Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy, and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, are expected to attend the negotiations, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. Both men have helped lead Mr. Trump’s diplomatic efforts, particularly in the Middle East.
Mr. Trump, speaking Monday on Air Force One, said he would be involved in the talks “indirectly” and that they’d be “very important.” He said Iran wanted to make a deal.
Mr. Trump has ordered a buildup of U.S. forces in the region — including two aircraft carriers — after vowing last month to aid antigovernment demonstrators in Iran. The Iranian government quelled those protests in a bloody crackdown that killed thousands, according to rights groups.
Now, Mr. Trump is calling on Iran to reach a deal to limit its nuclear and military capabilities, or face the threat of a possible attack. Last week, he wrote on social media that he preferred a deal with Iran, but that if one could not be brokered, “we will just have to see what the outcome will be.”
Countries in the region worry that a potential American strike, and Iranian retaliation that could draw in Israel, could destabilize the Middle East and endanger U.S. allies in the Arab world that host American soldiers.
In a speech on Tuesday shortly after the talks began, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded defiantly to Mr. Trump’s orders to send a second aircraft carrier to the region.
“An aircraft carrier is certainly a dangerous piece of equipment,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “But more dangerous than the carrier is the weapon that can send it to the bottom of the sea.”
It is unclear whether Iran and the United States will be able to reach a compromise that would stave off military escalation — or whether they even agree on what they are negotiating over.
On Tuesday, Mr. Khamenei called demands to limit the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles “illogical,” arguing that such demands interfered with a nation’s right to possess weapons of self-defense.
“Any country without deterrent weapons will be crushed under the feet of its enemies,” he said.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, who met in Switzerland on Monday with Oman’s foreign minister and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said on social media that he had “real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal.”
“What is not on the table: submission before threats,” he added.
On Monday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a powerful branch of Iran’s security forces — held a naval “war game” in the Strait of Hormuz, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency.
The Iranian government is under considerable pressure to agree to a deal. Iran’s economy has struggled under crippling international sanctions, which helped ignite the latest wave of protests against the country’s authoritarian government.
Iranian officials have argued they will not make concessions on nuclear enrichment without sanctions relief. Iran’s deputy foreign minister told state media that in return Tehran could offer Washington lucrative investment opportunities in sectors like oil, gas, and mining.
Last year, U.S. and Iranian officials tried to negotiate a nuclear deal that would end the sanctions but Israel launched a military campaign against the Iranian nuclear program as the talks were underway, leading to a 12-day-war between the two countries.
U.S. stealth bombers joined the Israeli assault, attacking three Iranian nuclear sites. Mr. Trump initially said that the U.S. bombing had obliterated Iran’s nuclear program, but American intelligence later found that it had been badly damaged, not destroyed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who met with Mr. Trump last week in Washington, said on Sunday that the American president believes that Iran “must surely understand that they missed out last time” by not showing more flexibility in the 2025 talks.
“He thinks there is a serious probability that they won’t miss out this time,” Mr. Netanyahu told a group of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.
But Mr. Netanyahu said he was far more skeptical of “any deal with Iran.” He added that Israel was demanding any agreement include a ban on nuclear enrichment, tight restrictions on ballistic missiles, and an end to Iranian backing for militias like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
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