Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi has arrived in Geneva for a second round of high-stakes nuclear talks with the United States, seeking to ease tensions and avert a military confrontation that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned could escalate into a regional conflict.

“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Araghchi wrote on X on Monday. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”

Iran and the US resumed nuclear negotiations earlier this month amid heightened military tensions, with Washington deploying warships, including a second aircraft carrier, to the region, as mediators work to prevent a war.

Araghchi met with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, on Monday, saying his team of nuclear experts expected a “deep technical discussion”.

The IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, has been calling for access to Iran’s main nuclear facilities, which were bombed by the US and Israel during the 12-day war in June. Tehran has said there might be a risk of radiation, so an official protocol is required to carry out the unprecedented task of inspecting highly enriched uranium ostensibly buried under the rubble.

‘Serious concessions’

Speaking on Monday, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said that Washington’s position on Iran’s nuclear programme “has moved towards a more realistic one”.

The state-run IRNA news agency also reported that Baghaei said the IAEA would play “an important role” in the upcoming mediated talks between Iran and the US. But Baghaei also renewed Tehran’s criticism of Grossi for the director’s refusal to condemn the military strikes on the country’s nuclear sites, which are protected under agency safeguards as part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Araghchi also said he would meet his Omani counterpart, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, who earlier this month mediated the first round of talks between Iran and the US since the war.

Reporting from Tehran, Global News Insight’s Resul Serdar said Iran is signalling that it is ready for “serious concessions” ahead of Tuesday’s talks.

“The Iranians are saying that they are ready to decrease the level of the enriched uranium, and also open up its nuclear facilities with full transparency to the global inspections body,” he said.

But Serdar noted that the talks come in the face of a massive military build-up, which continues to grow. The Iranians, too, he said, were not stepping back, with the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launching military drills in the Gulf on Monday.

“This military escalation is going on in parallel with the diplomatic engagement. The regional countries are also stepping up diplomacy because they have their concerns and they have their own fears,” he said.

‘It’s going to be hard’

The US, meanwhile, voiced caution.

Speaking during a visit to Hungary on Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said reaching a deal with Tehran would be difficult.

“I think that there’s an opportunity here to diplomatically reach an agreement that addresses the things we’re concerned about. We’ll be very open and welcoming to that,” Rubio said. “But I don’t want to overstate it, either. It’s going to be hard.”

While Iran has shown flexibility in discussing its nuclear programme, the US wants to widen the talks to include Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for regional armed groups.

Tehran has repeatedly emphasised that it will not agree to Washington’s demand for zero nuclear enrichment, and considers its missile programme a “red line” that cannot be negotiated.

US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, continues to openly discuss toppling Iran’s government.

Asked if he wanted a change in government in Iran on Friday, Trump responded that it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen”.

Asked why a second aircraft carrier was headed to the Middle East, Trump said: “In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it… If we need it, we’ll have it ready.”

Iran has promised to retaliate to any attack, saying it will strike US bases in the Middle East.

Military drills

On Monday, Iran’s state media reported that the IRGC had begun a series of military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow and strategic waterway in the Gulf.

The drill, named “Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz”, is designed to test the readiness of the IRGC’s naval units to protect the waterway, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency said on Monday.

Trump is again likely to send his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to represent the White House in the Geneva talks. Brad Cooper, the most senior US military commander in the region, had unexpectedly joined the US delegation during the Muscat talks on February 6.

The talks also come more than a month after Iran’s deadly crackdown against nationwide protests, with Iranian officials claiming that “terrorists” and “rioters”, armed and funded by the US and Israel, were behind the unrest.

The UN and international human rights organisations have blamed Iranian authorities for the widespread use of lethal force against peaceful protesters, which killed thousands, mainly on the nights of January 8 and 9.

But hardliners in Tehran are more concerned about any potential concessions that could be given during upcoming talks with the US.

Addressing an open session on Monday, one of the hardest-line lawmakers in Iran’s parliament cautioned security chief Ali Larijani against giving inspection access to the IAEA before ensuring Iran’s territorial integrity, the security of nuclear sites and scientists, and the use of peaceful nuclear energy for civilian purposes under the NPT.

“When US warships have opened their arms to embrace Iranian missiles, US bases have opened arms to take our missiles, and the homes of Zionist military personnel are anticipating the sound of the air raid sirens, it is obvious that such conditions cannot be met at the moment,” said Hamid Rasaei, a religious leader close to the hardline Paydari (Steadfastness) faction.

In the other diplomatic track pursued in Switzerland on Tuesday, officials will be discussing ways of ending the war in Ukraine, which is approaching the end of its fourth year after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

But no immediate breakthrough appears in sight, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday that Kyiv has “too often” been asked to make concessions.