Cnn
–
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Washington was “very close” to conclude a nuclear agreement with Iran after Tehran “in a way” agreed with his conditions.
“Iran has somehow accepted the conditions: they will not make it, friendly, nuclear dust. We are not going to make nuclear dust in Iran,” he said.
Iranian officials did not publicly comment on Trump’s comments, although the comments were reported by the country’s semi-official news agency in the country. CNN asked for a comment from the Iranian mission to the United Nations.
Speaking during a corporate round table in the Qatari Doha capital, Trump reiterated that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon” and suggested that the negotiators “may come close to making an agreement”.
During his Gulf tour, Trump repeatedly warned that Iran should never get a nuclear weapon, threatening to hit the country if it does not reach a nuclear agreement. But he has not explicitly excluded uranium enriching Iran on his own soil. Although uranium is used as nuclear fuel, it can be armed if it is enriched at high levels.
Iran said that its right to enrich uranium was not negotiable, but the Trump administration sent mixed signals to its position on the issue.
In an interview with Breitbart last week, the American foreign envoy Steve Witkoff said that an enrichment program in Iran is a “red line” for the United States. In an anterior interview with Fox News, he suggested that Iran could be allowed to enrich uranium with low levels.
Several series of talks took place between the United States and Iran, but the most recent in the Omanaise Muscat capital last weekend was described by the spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as “difficult”.
A senior Trump administration official gave a more positive assessment, telling CNN that discussions, which lasted more than three hours, were encouraging.
World oil prices dropped after Trump’s comments. The price of a barrel of crude brent, the world’s reference to oil, dropped 3% Thursday morning at $ 64 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the American reference index, fell 3.5% to almost $ 61 per barrel at the same time.
It is not known what Trump heard by “nuclear dust”, but the Gulf States, including Qatar, fear that an attack on Iranian nuclear installations can cause an environmental disaster in the region and lead them in a broader regional war.
Speaking in Doha, Trump promised to “protect” Qatar.
“For this country in particular, because you are right next to it, you are a stone throwing, not even, you are in one foot. You can walk directly in Iran. Other countries are much further, so it is probably not quite the same level of danger, but we will protect this country, this very special place with a special royal family,” he said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has castigated Trump’s threatening remarks.
The American president “is naive to think that he can come to our region, threaten us and hope that we are recovering against his requests,” Pezeshkian told a group of academics on Wednesday at a meeting in the province of Kermanshah, according to Iranian media. “We will never negotiate our dignity. It’s in the blood of each Iranian “,”
“You have tried to put Iran on your knees in the past 47 years. We have existed for thousands of years and we will continue as one for the coming years,” he said.
Trump repeated his threats on Wednesday, saying that he did not want nuclear talks in Iran to take a “violent course”.
“Two courses, there are only two lessons. There are not three, four or five, there are two. There is a friendly and unsuitable course and not adapted to a violent course, and I do not want this. I will say it in advance. I do not want that, but they must move,” said the president.
