Trump says he’s less confident about nuclear deal with Iran

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he was less confident that Iran will agree to stop uranium enrichment in a nuclear deal with Washington, according to an interview released on Wednesday.

“I don’t know,” 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. “I don’t know. I did think so, and I’m getting more and more — less confident about it.”

Trump has been seeking a new nuclear deal to place limits on Iran’s disputed uranium enrichment activities and has threatened the Islamic Republic with bombing if no agreement is reached.

He told reporters at the White House on Monday that he had discussed Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and said talks with Iranians were “tough.”

In the podcast interview, Trump said the Iranians seem to be using delaying tactics.

“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 said.

Trump repeated that Washington would not allow Tehran to develop nuclear bombs – by enriching uranium to high levels of fissile purity – whether or not a deal is reached.

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“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.”

Iran has long said it has no plans to develop nuclear weapon and is only interested in atomic power generation and other peaceful projects.

Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a potential way to narrow US-Iranian differences.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control and US relations, told Russian media that efforts to reach a solution should be redoubled and that Moscow was willing to help in practical ways.

“We are ready to provide assistance to both Washington and Tehran, not only politically, not only in the form of ideas that could be of use in the negotiation process, but also practically: for example, through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors,” Ryabkov said.

He did not make clear whether the nuclear fuel would then be returned to Iran for use in its civil nuclear energy programme, which Moscow has helped develop.

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 uranium enrichment drive in exchange for relief from international sanctions.

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