Second Round of Talks: The Shadow of US Warships Over Diplomatic Gambit

Geneva, Fagun 4: Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi departed for Geneva on Sunday, where the second round of indirect Tehran-Washington talks will take place. These talks come at a time when both sides have renewed diplomatic efforts, but stakeholders have presented vastly different visions regarding the nature of any potential agreement, exposing the fragile foundations of this diplomatic push.

According to a foreign ministry statement, Araghchi is leading a “diplomatic and specialized” delegation to the talks scheduled for Tuesday. He is set to meet with Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, among other officials.

According to media reports, the U.S. team will be led by President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.

The meeting follows the first round of talks held in Muscat, Oman, on February 6, which both sides described as a “good start” but yielded no tangible breakthrough.

In public statements ahead of the Geneva talks, Iranian officials have displayed a mixture of conditional openness and defiance. Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi signaled Tehran’s willingness to compromise on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief but also drew firm red lines.

“The ball is in America’s court to prove that they want to do a deal,” Takht-Ravanchi said.

He confirmed that Iran could discuss reducing its stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium, which could be presented as proof of the country’s flexibility, but flatly ruled out the possibility of zero uranium enrichment on Iranian soil.

“It is not on the table anymore,” Takht-Ravanchi said, reiterating that Iran’s missile program is non-negotiable.

According to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, Hamid Ghanbari, deputy foreign minister for economic diplomacy and a member of the Iranian negotiating team, revealed that recent discussions in Muscat explored the possibilities of joint investment in energy and mining projects and the potential purchase of U.S.-made aircraft.

Ghanbari stressed that any agreement must ensure the release of Iran’s frozen assets abroad in a “real and usable” manner.

He further stated that Tehran is seeking a “serious agreement” but will not accept zero uranium enrichment.

According to Iran’s official IRNA news agency, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Abdolrahim Mousavi, warned on Sunday that any war would carry consequences for the United States.

“If Trump seeks war with Iran, why does he speak of negotiation?” Mousavi said, adding that entering a conflict would “teach him a lesson” and end his “blustering.”

Meanwhile, signals from Washington are similarly mixed. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Trump prefers diplomacy and a negotiated settlement. “No one’s ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran, but we’re going to try,” Rubio said at a press conference in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following his meeting with Trump in Washington, also suggested that Trump is “determined to exhaust the possibilities of achieving a deal, which he believes can be achieved now.”

But Trump himself has kept military options open. He told reporters on Thursday that if negotiations with Iran fail, “we’ll have to go to phase two. Phase two will be very tough for them.”

On Friday, Trump stated that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, had been ordered to join the USS Abraham Lincoln and three guided-missile destroyers already deployed to the Middle East region.

The tensions seem to run even deeper behind the scenes. CBS News reported on Sunday that Trump had told Netanyahu as early as December that he would support Israeli strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile program if a deal could not be reached.

CBS News said U.S. officials have since begun internal discussions on how to assist such an operation, “including the provision of aerial refueling for Israeli aircraft and the delicate matter of securing overflight permission from countries along the potential route.”

Netanyahu, for his part, has set a maximalist bar. Speaking at a public conference on Sunday, he insisted that any potential agreement with Iran must include the removal of nuclear material, a halt to uranium enrichment, and restrictions on ballistic missiles.

Netanyahu also reiterated “his skepticism about any deal with Iran.”

With U.S. warships massing in the region and both sides preparing for the possibility of failure, it is widely believed that Tuesday’s talks will test whether diplomacy can still offer a path forward, or whether they will merely serve as a prelude to deeper confrontation.