US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Washington and Tehran had “sort of” agreed to a nuclear deal.
"We're in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace," Trump said on the third day of his Gulf tour that currently sees him in the United Arab Emirates, an AFP report said.
Trump told reporters that the negotiations between American envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had “very serious” implications on “long-term peace” and were continuing to progress. Oil prices fell by about $2 on Thursday, in anticipation for the US-Iran nuclear deal that could result in sanctions easing.
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Despite the early positive feedback on the negotiations, Trump has also underscored that “violent” military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities remains a possibility, should the talks go south.
"We're getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this ... there (are) two steps to doing this, there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don't want to do it the second way," he said.
With Tehran publicly insisting on continuing its uranium enrichment activities, the Iranian-American nuclear negotiations remain unfinished, with the most recent session held at Oman last Sunday, a Reuters report said.
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“Iran has sort of agreed to the terms: They’re not going to make, I call it, in a friendly way, nuclear dust,” Trump explained, at a business event.
“We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran.”
However, a senior Iranian official has reportedly stated that the country had not received any fresh nuclear proposal from the United States, adding that Iran would never compromise on its right to enrich uranium on its soil.
Still, an NBC interview on Wednesday saw Ali Shamkhani, an advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declare that Iran was willing to agree to a deal with the US, in exchange for the revocation of economic sanctions.
Trump, however, has hinted at additional demands from Iran at a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday—such as eliminating funding for terrorism and stopping proxy wars—which does not bode well for the negotiations, which is currently set for a fifth iteration at a later date.
