Trump has pushed to halt Iran's enrichment of uranium entirely, as well as address Tehran's ballistic missile programme and its support of militant groups in the region. Iran has maintained that the talks must remain focused only on nuclear issues.
Nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran resumed in Geneva on Thursday, the third meeting mediated by Oman since talks restarted earlier this month.
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US President Donald Trump wants a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear programme and has gathered a fleet of aircraft and warships in the Middle East to pressure Tehran into a deal.
Trump has pushed to halt Iran's enrichment of uranium entirely, as well as address Tehran's ballistic missile programme and its support of regional proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis.
Tehran has insisted that the talks must remain focused only on nuclear issues.
Earlier this week, in his State of the Union speech, Trump accused Iran of being the number one sponsor of terrorism and slammed the recent deadly crackdown on country-wide protests sparked by Iran's ailing economy, which human rights groups and insiders in Iran believe might have resulted in as many as 30,000 deaths.
Trump also claimed Tehran "already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America."
“They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, and in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue. They’re starting it all over.”
Tehran has rejected the US president's claims as "big lies".
Iran has previously said all US military bases in the Middle East would be considered legitimate targets in the case of Washington's intervention. Iran has also threatened to attack Israel, meaning a regional war again could erupt across the Middle East.
“There would be no victory for anybody — it would be a devastating war,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview on Wednesday just before he flew to Geneva.
“Since the Americans' bases are scattered through different places in the region, then unfortunately perhaps the whole region would be engaged and be involved, so it is a very terrible scenario.”
Ballistic missiles a point of contention
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signalled that a breakthrough was unlikely in this round of talks.
Rubio said the discussions are important to gauge how serious Tehran is in reaching a deal to avoid potential US military action, adding that Iran's refusal to discuss its ballistic missiles programme was a major obstacle.
"The talks tomorrow will be largely focused on the nuclear programme, and we hope progress can be made," Rubio said before adding that "it's also important to remember that Iran refuses to talk about the ballistic missiles to us or to anyone, and that's a big problem."
"But if you can't even make progress on the nuclear programme, it's going to be hard to make progress on the ballistic missiles as well."
Speaking to reporters during a visit to St Kitts and Nevis, Rubio said that Iran's conventional missiles threaten "all of our bases in the UAE and Qatar and Bahrain, and they also possess naval assets that threaten shipping and try to threaten the US Navy."
Is Iran back to enriching uranium?
Iran has said it has not enriched since the 12-day conflict with Israel in June, but it has blocked IAEA inspectors from visiting the sites that the US and Israel bombed.
Satellite photos have shown activity at two of those sites, suggesting Iran is trying to assess and potentially recover material there.
The West and the IAEA say Iran had a nuclear weapons program until 2003. Before the June attack, it had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
US intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to restart a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.” While insisting its program is peaceful, Iranian officials have threatened to pursue the bomb in recent years.
“The principle’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” US Vice President JD Vance told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
Vance said Trump is “sending those negotiators to try to address that problem” and “wants to address that problem diplomatically.”
“But, of course, the president has other options as well,” Vance added.
During the last round of talks last Wednesday, Iran briefly halted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes, for live fire drills.
As the talks began, Iran’s state media announced that Iranian forces had fired live missiles toward the strait and would close it for several hours for “safety and maritime concerns.”
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meanwhile warned that “the strongest army in the world might sometimes receive such a slap that it cannot get back on its feet."