Iran will partially shut down a vital global oil supply route, state media said on Tuesday, as it held talks over its disputed nuclear programme with the United States, which has sent a battle force to the Gulf to press Tehran to make concessions.
US President Donald Trump has said "regime change" in Tehran may be the best thing that can happen, while Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that any US attempts to depose his government would fail.
Just as the talks got underway in Geneva, Iranian state media reported that parts of the strategic Strait of Hormuz will close for a few hours due to "security precautions" while Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards conduct military drills there.
Tehran has in the past threatened to shut down the strait to commercial shipping if it is attacked, a move that would choke off a fifth of global oil flows and drive up crude prices.
US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner took part in the Geneva talks, which are being mediated by Oman, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters, alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi. Iranian state TV said a second round of talks had ended.
"We have entered certain details related to both the lifting of sanctions and nuclear subjects," Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told state media before the talks ended.
"We are ready to continue these talks as long as it takes, the issues are complicated. There is no trust between the two parties, we have to continue the negotiations in these conditions," he added.
Baghaei has said Tehran's views on the nuclear issue, the lifting of economic sanctions and a framework for any understanding have been conveyed to the US side. Earlier, Trump said he himself would be involved "indirectly" in the Geneva talks and that he believed Tehran wanted to make a deal.
"I don't think they want the consequences of not making a deal," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday. "We could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s in to knock out their nuclear potential."
"And we had to send the B-2s." The US joined Israel last June in bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.
Since the June strikes, Iran's Islamic rulers have been weakened by street protests, suppressed at a cost of thousands of lives, against a cost-of-living crisis driven in part by international sanctions that have strangled Iran's oil income. Just after the talks started, Iranian media cited 86-year-old Khamenei as saying Washington could not force out his government.
The republic has been ruled by clerics since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. "The US President says their army is the world's strongest, but the strongest army in the world can sometimes be slapped so hard it cannot get up," he said, in comments published by Iranian media.
Washington has sought to expand the scope of talks to non-nuclear issues such as Iran's missile stockpile. Tehran says it is willing only to discuss curbs on its nuclear programme - in exchange for sanctions relief - and that it will not give up uranium enrichment completely or discuss its missile programme.
Khamenei reiterated Iran's position that its formidable missiles stockpile is non-negotiable and that their type and range have nothing to do with the United States.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Tuesday the success of the Geneva talks hinged on the US not making unrealistic demands and on its seriousness on lifting the crippling sanctions on Iran.
Tehran and Washington were scheduled to hold a sixth round of talks in June last year when Washington's ally Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran, and was then joined by US B-2 bombers that struck nuclear targets. Tehran has since said it has halted uranium enrichment activity.
Tuesday's meeting took place at the residence of the Omani ambassador to the United Nations amid a heavy security presence. Some cars with Iranian diplomatic licence plates were visible outside.
The US military is preparing for the possibility of weeks of operations against Iran if Trump orders an attack, two US officials told Reuters. The US and Israel believe Iran aspires to build a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel's existence.
Iran says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful, even though it has enriched uranium far beyond the purity needed for power generation, and close to what is required for a bomb.
Iran has joined the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which guarantees countries the right to pursue civilian nuclear power in return for requiring them to forgo atomic weapons and cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Israel, which has not signed the NPT, neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons, under a decades-old ambiguity policy designed to deter surrounding enemies. Scholars believe it does.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Elwely Elwelly in Dubai, Humeyra Pamuk in Budapest, Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru, Steve Holland in Washington, Writing by Michael Georgy, Editing by Kevin Liffey, Lincoln Feast, Sharon Singleton and Gareth Jones)
