US President Donald Trump has said he was less confident about Iran nuclear deal that Tehran will agree to halt uranium enrichment, according to an interview released on Wednesday.
“I don’t know. I did think so, and I’m getting more and more — less confident about it,” Trump told the “Pod Force One” podcast on Monday when asked if he thought he could get Iran to agree to shut down its nuclear program.
Accusing Iranians of using delaying tactics, Trump said: “I’m less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made.”
He reiterated that the US would not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, whether or not a deal is reached.
“But it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying, it’s so much nicer to do it. But I don’t think I see the same level of enthusiasm for them to make a deal,” he added.
The US president has been seeking a new nuclear deal to place limits on Iran’s nuclear activities and has threatened Tehran with bombing if no deal is reached.
On Monday, Trump said that he had discussed Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said talks with Iranians were “tough.”
Earlier, Tehran had said it has no plans to build a nuclear weapon and is only interested in power generation and other peaceful projects.
During his first White House term, Trump withdrew the US from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed limits on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
UN nuclear agency members draft resolution against Iran for failing to uphold obligations
Western nations are planning to table a resolution at a meeting of the UN’s nuclear agency that will find Iran in non-compliance with its so-called safeguards obligations for the first time in 20 years, reported news agency Associated Press.
The draft resolution will be jointly tabled by France, the UK and Germany, known as the E3, together with the United States, the APreport said citing a senior Western diplomat.
The draft resolution said: “Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran … constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement,” according to the report.
