The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he is open to meet Iran’s supreme leader or president and that he believes that the two countries will reach a new agreement in the disputed Tehran Nuclear Program.
However, Trump, who in 2018 brought the United States out of a nuclear agreement now dying between Tehran and world powers, repeated a threat of military action against Iran unless a new pact is quickly reached to prevent nuclear weapons from developing.
Trump, in a April 22 interview with Time The magazine published on Friday said: “I think we are going to make an agreement with Iran” after the indirect conversations of the United States-will do last week in which the parties agreed to prepare a framework for a possible agreement. An American official said the discussions threw “very good progress.”
Requested by Time Whether he was open to meet the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a hard anti-western alineator who has the last opinion about all the main state policies, or the reformist president Masoud fishshkian, Trump replied: “Sure”.
Expert conversations will resume on Saturday in Oman, which has acted as an intermediary between the adversaries for a long time, with a third round of high -level nuclear discussions planned for the same day.
Israel, a nearby ally of the United States and the main enemy of the Middle East of Iran, has described the growing enrichment program of the Islamic Republic, a potential route towards nuclear bombs, as an “existential threat.”
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has requested a complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, saying that partial measures will not be enough to guarantee the security of Israel.
When asked in the interview if he worried that Netanyahu could drag the United States to a war with Iran, Trump said: “No.”
‘I’ll be leading the package’
However, when asked if the United States would join a war against Iran if Israel took action, he replied: “It can be very voluntarily if we cannot get a deal. If we do not make a deal, I will lead the pack.”
In March, Iran responded to a Trump letter in which he urged him to negotiate a new agreement stating that he would not participate in direct conversations under maximum pressure and military threats, but was open to indirect negotiations, as in the past.
Although current conversations have been indirect and mediated by Oman, US and Iranian officials spoke face briefly after the first round on April 12.
The latest face to face known between the two countries took place under the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, during the diplomacy that led to the 2015 nuclear agreement.
The Western powers accuse Iran of hosting a clandestine agenda to develop the capacity of nuclear weapons enriching uranium to a high level of fisrosil purity, above what they say it is justifiable for a civil atomic energy program.
Tehran says that its nuclear program is totally peaceful. The 2015 agreement stopped its uranium enrichment activity in exchange for relief of international sanctions, but they will resume and accelerated enrichment after Trump’s strike in 2018.
