US president reiterated his positive prognosis, saying: \u2018Iran, I think, is going very well. We\u2019ll see what happens\u2019
\n Washington
\nUS President Donald Trump this week said he is open to meeting Iran\u2019s supreme leader or president and that he thinks the two countries will strike a new deal on Tehran\u2019s disputed nuclear programme.
\nHowever, Trump, who in 2018 pulled the US out of a now moribund nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, repeated a threat of military action against Iran unless a new pact is swiftly reached to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
\nTrump, in an April 22 interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said, \u201cI think we\u2019re going to make a deal with Iran\u201d following indirect US-Iranian talks last week in which the sides agreed to draw up a framework for a potential deal.
\nThe Republican US president, speaking separately to reporters at the White House on Friday, reiterated his positive prognosis, saying: \u201cIran, I think, is going very well. We\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d
\nA US official said the discussions yielded \u201cvery good progress.\u201d
\nAsked by Time whether he was open to meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on all major state policies, or President Masoud Pezeshkian, Trump replied: \u201cSure.\u201d
\nExpert-level talks are set to resume on Saturday in Oman, which has acted as an intermediary between the longtime adversaries, with a third round of high-level nuclear discussions planned for the same day.
\nIsrael, a close US ally and Iran\u2019s major Middle East foe, has described Tehran\u2019s escalating uranium enrichment programme\u2013a potential pathway to nuclear bombs\u2013as an \u201cexistential threat\u201d.
\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a complete dismantling of Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities, saying partial measures will not suffice to ensure Israel\u2019s security.
\nAsked in the interview if he was concerned Netanyahu might drag the United States into a war with Iran, Trump said: \u201cNo.\u201d
\n\u2018I\u2019ll be leading the pack\u2019
\nHowever, when asked if the US would join a war against Iran should Israel take action, he responded: \u201cI may go in very willingly if we can\u2019t get a deal. If we don\u2019t make a deal, I\u2019ll be leading the pack.\u201d
\nIn March, Iran responded to a letter from Trump in which he urged it to negotiate a new deal by stating it would not engage in direct talks under maximum pressure and military threats but was open to indirect negotiations, as in the past.
\nAlthough the current talks have been indirect and mediated by Oman, US and Iranian officials did speak face-to-face briefly following the first round on April 12.
\nThe last known face-to-face negotiations between the two countries took place under former US president Barack Obama during diplomacy that led to the 2015 nuclear accord.
\nWestern powers accuse Iran of harbouring a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy programme.
\nTehran says its nuclear programme is wholly peaceful. The 2015 deal curbed its uranium enrichment activity in exchange for relief from international sanctions, but Iran resumed and accelerated enrichment after the Trump walkout in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US president reiterated his positive prognosis, saying: \u2018Iran, I think, is going very well. We\u2019ll see what happens\u2019 Washington US President Donald Trump this week said he is open to meeting Iran\u2019s supreme leader or president and that he thinks the two countries will strike a new deal on Tehran\u2019s disputed nuclear programme. However, Trump, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-474764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n