\u201cAll its bases are within our reach\u2026we will target all of them in host countries\u201d: Iran Defence Minister
\n tehran
\nIran threatened on Wednesday to target US military bases in the region if conflict breaks out, while President Donald Trump said he was \u201cless confident\u201d about reaching a nuclear deal.
\nTehran and Washington have held five rounds of talks since April to thrash out a new nuclear deal to replace the 2015 accord that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
\nSince returning to office in January, Trump has revived his \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign on Tehran, backing nuclear diplomacy but warning of military action if it fails.
\n\u201cAll its bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation we will target all of them in the host countries,\u201d Iran\u2019s Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to US threats of military action if the talks fail.
\n\u201cGod willing, things won\u2019t reach that point, and the talks will succeed,\u201d the minister said, adding that the US side \u201cwill suffer more losses\u201d if it came to conflict. The United States has multiple bases in the Middle East, with the largest located in Qatar.
\nIran and the United States have recently been locked in a diplomatic standoff over Iran\u2019s uranium enrichment, with Tehran defending it as a \u201cnon-negotiable\u201d right and Washington calling it as a \u201cred line\u201d.
\nTrump had previously expressed optimism about the talks, saying during a Gulf tour last month Washington was \u201cgetting close\u201d to securing a deal.
\nBut in an interview published on Wednesday, Trump said he was \u201cless confident\u201d the United States and Iran could reach a deal, in response to a question on whether he believed he could stop Tehran from enriching uranium.
\nA shame
\nIran currently enriches uranium to 60%, far above the 3.67% limit set in the 2015 deal and close though still short of the 90% needed for a nuclear warhead.
\nWestern countries, including the United States and its ally Israel, have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire atomic weapons, while Tehran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. Last week, Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said enrichment is \u201ckey\u201d to Iran\u2019s nuclear programme and that Washington \u201ccannot have a say\u201d on the issue.
\nDuring the interview with the New York Post\u2019s podcast \u201cPod Force One\u201d, which was recorded on Monday, Trump said he was losing hope a deal could be reached.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. I did think so, and I\u2019m getting more and more \u2014 less confident about it. They seem to be delaying and I think that\u2019s a shame. I am less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cSomething happened to them but I am much less confident of a deal being made… Maybe they don\u2019t wanna make a deal, what can I say? And maybe they do. There is nothing final.\u201d
\nTrump maintained that Washington would not allow Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons, saying \u201cit would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying\u201d. On May 31, after the fifth round of talks, Iran said it had received \u201celements\u201d of a US proposal for a nuclear deal, with Araghchi later saying the text contained \u201cambiguities\u201d.
\nIran has said it will present a counter-proposal to the latest draft from Washington, which it had criticised for failing to offer relief from sanctions \u2014 a key demand for Tehran, which has been reeling under their weight for years. On Monday, the United Nations nuclear watchdog began a Board of Governors meeting in Vienna that will last until Friday to discuss Iran\u2019s atomic activities and other issues.
\nThe International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] meeting followed a report issued by it criticising \u201cless than satisfactory\u201d cooperation from Tehran, particularly in explaining past cases of nuclear material found at undeclared sites.
\nIran has criticised the IAEA report as unbalanced, saying it relied on \u201cforged documents\u201d provided by its arch-foe Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cAll its bases are within our reach\u2026we will target all of them in host countries\u201d: Iran Defence Minister tehran Iran threatened on Wednesday to target US military bases in the region if conflict breaks out, while President Donald Trump said he was \u201cless confident\u201d about reaching a nuclear deal. Tehran and Washington have held five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-483589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n