US President Donald Trump has expressed optimism over reaching a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, despite escalating tensions and combative language from both sides in recent days.
Speaking to mediapersons in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump stated: “I think we have a chance of making a deal with Iran. They don’t want to be blown up. They would rather make a deal, and I think that could happen in the not-too-distant future.”
He added that any agreement must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and include strict provisions for inspections. “I want the nuclear agreement very strong, where we can go in with inspectors, we can take whatever we want, we can blow up whatever we want, but nobody gets killed. We can blow up a lab, but nobody is going to be in a lab, as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up,” the President remarked.
While Trump’s statements appeared to signal a willingness to pursue diplomacy, he simultaneously issued a stark warning, threatening to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities if necessary. Tehran has condemned these comments, labelling them a red line with dangerous consequences.
“If the US seeks a diplomatic solution, it must abandon the language of threats and sanctions,” an unnamed Iranian official was quoted as saying by the state-run media. The official added that such statements “are open hostility against Iran’s national interests.”
Also read: US, Iran may ink nuclear pact in Rome: Report
Meanwhile, the Iranian foreign ministry summoned Austria’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran on Friday after Vienna’s domestic intelligence agency declared in a recent report that Iran’s nuclear weapons development programme was “well advanced”. Iranian officials dismissed the findings as “fake” and politically motivated.
President Trump had earlier stunned many, including Israel, by announcing that direct negotiations were underway with Tehran. The talks are reportedly aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for partial sanctions relief.
The revelation came during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington last week, where he had sought a more aggressive American stance towards Iran’s nuclear programme. However, Washington made it clear that it would not consider military action—either overt or covert—if diplomacy remained a viable path.
The United States’ restraint has caused considerable frustration within the Netanyahu administration, which has long advocated a more confrontational policy towards Iran and supported military strikes on its nuclear facilities.
Despite sabre-rattling on both sides, analysts say there remains a narrow but meaningful window for a breakthrough—albeit one tempered by deep mistrust and years of strategic hostility.
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