The Latest: Tense US-Iran talks in Geneva as Trump deploys warships and aircraft to the Middle East

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Iran and the United States are talking in Geneva for a third time on Thursday as President Donald Trump seeks to delay Tehran's nuclear program while threatening it by deploying a massive number of aircraft and warships to the Middle East.

U.S. special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer and friend of Trump, will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in an effort to convince his country to halt its enrichment of uranium, a key step to building a nuclear bomb, and curtail or stop its production of long-range missiles.

Iran has maintained that it will continue to enrich uranium even as its program sits in ruins following a U.S. attack in June on three of its nuclear sites. If an American attack happens, Iran has said all U.S. military bases in the Mideast will considered legitimate targets and has also threatened to attack Israel.

The latest round of negotiations is the third since Israel's 12-day war with Iran last year, and their failure could again lead to a regional war across the Middle East.

Here’s the latest:

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, left an American naval base in southern Greece Thursday after a brief stopover of a few days while on its way to the Middle East, where the U.S. has amassed a large number of warships and aircraft as tension with Iran spikes.

Tugboats towed the aircraft carrier away from the Souda Bay naval base on the island of Crete as talks between Iran and the United States were due to begin in Geneva.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran will not have nuclear weapons because the country’s religious leader has said the country does not plan to pursue nuclear weapons. ““The religious leader of a society can’t lie,” Pezeshkian said on state television on Thursday in Sari, northern Iran, as the third round of nuclear negotiations with the U.S. are about to take place in Geneva. “When he announces that we won’t have nuclear weapons, it means we won’t. Even if I want to do that, I can’t, because of my beliefs."

Oman’s foreign minister flashed a thumbs up to an Associated Press journalist on Thursday who shouted a question about whether he was hopeful about the talks.

Badr al-Busaidi was leaving a hotel in Geneva on Thursday morning. He sped away in a sedan guided by a police escort.

Oman said Thursday it had received “views and proposals” from Iran on the ongoing nuclear talks.

In a statement on the state-run Oman News Agency, it said Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi received the information in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Al-Busaidi “is expected to meet with the American negotiating team this morning to convey the Iranian perspective and, in turn, listen to the ideas and proposals put forward by the American side,” the agency said.

From there, further indirect talks will take place.

A new AP-NORC poll found that many U.S. adults continue to view Iran’s nuclear program as a threat, but few Americans have high trust in President Donald Trump’s judgment on the use of military force abroad.

The survey was conducted Feb. 19-23, as military tensions built in the Middle East between the United States and Iran.

It found that about half of U.S. adults are “extremely” or “very” concerned that Iran’s nuclear program poses a direct threat to the United States, but only about one-quarter of Americans say they have high trust in Trump on relationships with adversaries or the use of military force abroad.

Read more here.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi after arriving in Geneva on Wednesday night. The men “reviewed the views and proposals that the Iranian side will present to reach an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, based on the guiding principles agreed upon in the previous round of negotiations,” a report from the state-run Oman News Agency said.

These latest talks in Geneva are again being mediated by Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula that’s long served as an intermediary between Iran and the West.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said just ahead of the talks that Iran is “always trying to rebuild elements” of its nuclear program. He said that Tehran is not enriching uranium right now, “but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.”

Rubio also told reporters late Wednesday in St. Kitts, where he was attending a regional summit with Caribbean leaders that Iran is “trying to achieve intercontinental ballistic missiles.”