The two sides are set to negotiate on Saturday, but expectations for a breakthrough are modest, and distrust is high.
A brief handshake may be the most likely outcome from preliminary diplomatic talks set for Saturday between American and Iranian officials.
It would probably be enough to keep the discussions going, and potentially lead to the first official face-to-face negotiations between the two countries since President Trump abandoned a landmark nuclear accord seven years ago.
The talks, in the Gulf nation of Oman, will serve as a feeling-out session to see whether the Trump administration and Iran’s clerical leaders could move to full negotiations to limit Iran’s nuclear program.
The Iranian state news media reported that Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had arrived with a small delegation on Saturday morning in Muscat, the Omani capital, which American and Iranian diplomats have used as neutral negotiating territory for years. The plane on which Steve Witkoff, the American official leading Mr. Trump’s team, was traveling landed in Muscat earlier on Saturday, according to flight tracking data.
Both sides come in with deep distrust, given that Mr. Trump walked away from the 2015 accord that Iran had brokered with the United States and other world powers, and then imposed harsh sanctions on Tehran during his first term.
Mr. Trump now wants to strike a deal — both to showcase his negotiating skills and to keep simmering tensions between Iran and Israel from escalating into a more intense conflict that would further roil the Middle East.