President Trump said Thursday in Qatar that Iran had “sort of” agreed to the terms of a peace deal with the United States.
“They’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran. And we’ve been strong,” Mr. Trump said at a business roundtable. “ I want them to succeed. I want them to end up being a great country, frankly, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
He said the U.S. is “in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace, and if we do that, it’ll be fantastic.”
NBC News reported earlier that a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader said that Tehran would commit to not making nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of sanctions on Iran.
Mr. Trump has maintained that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
The U.S. has met with Iranian officials four times so far to discuss a peace deal. The most recent ended Sunday in Oman with further talks planned.
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Mr. Trump has appealed to the leaders he’s met with in the Middle East for assistance with Iran.
He said Wednesday in Qatar that there are only “two courses” to dealing with Iran’s nuclear program.
“There aren’t three or four or five, there’s two. There’s a friendly and a non-friendly,” he said at a state dinner in Qatar. “The non-friendly is a violent person. I don’t want that.”
The president said Qatar has been “working with us very closely with respect to negotiating a deal with Iran,” but said Iran “has to get moving.”
“I hope the Iranian leaders understand that what you’re doing, really, what you’re doing for them is a big favor, your prime minister, your great leader right here on my left has been helping so much, and they respect them, and they listen to them,” he said. “They have to get moving. We both understand them. They have to make that decision. It’s their decision, because we want to see Iran do well and thrive and be successful and everybody be happy.”
He called the situation with Iran “perilous.”
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“We want to do it, something that’s going to save maybe millions of lives. Because things like that get started and they get out of control,” he said. “I’ve seen it over and over again. They go to war and things get out of control, and we’re not going to let that happen.”
