US President Donald Trump has said he wants to negotiate a new deal with Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weapons and sent a letter to its leaders saying he hoped they would open talks, reports The Guardian.
It is the first practical step taken by the US president to see if new negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme are possible.
Trump pulled the US out of the previous agreement – which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief – in 2018, and since then Tehran has built a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that is enough for use in multiple nuclear weapons.
“I’ve written them a letter, saying I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily it’s going to be a terrible thing for them,” Trump told Fox Business in a clip broadcast on Friday.
“You can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
The letter appeared to have been addressed to Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has recently opposed negotiations with the US so long as economic sanctions are in force.
The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, discussed international efforts to resolve the situation around Iran’s nuclear program with the Iranian ambassador, Kazem Jalali, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.
The Trump administration has previously suggested the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had agreed to act as a mediator with Iran, and Russian diplomats have already been advising Trump to keep any negotiations with Iran limited to the nuclear issue.
The experienced Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov earlier this week said Washington and Moscow had established a communication channel on Russia’s role as a mediator.
He advised the US not to seek agreement on wider issues such as Iran’s missile program or its regional behaviour, a reference to its support to the resistance groups in the Middle East, also known as Iranian proxy forces. Ulyanov said it was not possible to kill three birds with one stone.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
