The United States and Iran are set to hold indirect talks in Switzerland on Thursday, February 26, aiming to strike a deal to avert fresh conflict and bring an end to weeks of threats. The new round of negotiations in Geneva comes after the US carried out a massive military build-up in the region and President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to strike Iran if a deal is not reached.

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of “pursuing sinister nuclear ambitions.”

He also claimed Tehran had “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.”

The Iranian foreign ministry called these claims “big lies.”

The maximum range of Iran’s missiles is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) according to what Tehran has publicly disclosed. However, the US Congressional Research Service estimates they top out at about 3,000 kilometers – less than a third of the distance to the continental United States.

The dispute between the countries mostly revolves around Iran’s nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists is peaceful. However, the US has also been pushing to discuss Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well as Tehran’s support for armed groups hostile towards Israel.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Iran must also negotiate on its missile prprogram, lling Tehran’s refusal to discuss ballistic weapons “a big, big problem” on the eve of the talks. He followed up by saying “the president wants diplomatic solutions.”

‘Neither war nor peace’

Iran has taken anything beyond the nuclear issue off the negotiating table and has demanded that the US sanctions crippling its economy be part of any agreement.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday he had a “favorable outlook for the negotiations” that could finally “move beyond this ‘neither war nor peace’ situation.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the Iranian delegation at the talks, has called them “a historic opportunity,” adding that a deal was “within reach.”

In a foreign ministry statement that followed a meeting with his Oman counterpart, Araghchi said the success of the US negotiations depend “on the seriousness of the other side and its avoidance of contradictory behavior and positions.”

The US will be represented by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka.

The two countries held talks earlier this month in Oman, which is mediating the negotiations, then gathered for a second round in Geneva last week. A previous attempt at negotiations collapsed when Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran last June, beginning a 12-day war that Washington briefly joined to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.

In January, fresh tensions between the US and Iran emerged after Tehran engaged in a bloody crackdown on widespread protests that have posed one of the greatest challenges to the Islamic republic since its inception.

Trump has threatened several times to intervene to “help” the Iranian people.