US president says Iran initially wanted talks through intermediaries, but he thinks Tehran has changed its position.
Washington, DC – Donald Trump has suggested that Iran may agree to direct talks with the United States despite the intensifying tensions and back-and-forth threats between the two countries.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the US president appeared optimistic about the prospect of face-to-face diplomacy with Tehran.
“I think it’s better if we have direct talks,” he said. “I think it goes faster, and you understand the other side a lot better than if you go through intermediaries. They wanted to use intermediaries. I don’t think that’s necessarily true any more.”
Last month, Trump sent a letter to the Iranian leadership calling for negotiations to address Iran’s nuclear programme. The US president has also been regularly threatening Iran with military strikes.
Tehran has rejected the prospect of direct talks with Washington but said it is open to indirect diplomacy.
It is not clear whether Iran has indeed changed its stance or if Trump is speculating about Tehran’s position.
The US administration has been piling up sanctions against Iran with the aim of completely choking off the country’s oil exports – particularly to China.
In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump nixed a multilateral deal that saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions against its economy.
Tehran maintains that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon. Israel, the top US ally in the region, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has promised to bring “peace” to global conflicts – though he has addressed Iran with a mix of public diplomatic overtures and bombastic warnings.
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” he said last week.
Iranian officials have responded with their own threats, suggesting that, if the country is attacked, it will strike back against US troops and interests in the Middle East.
“The US must know that, when facing Iran, threats will never achieve anything,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last month, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.
“The US and others must know that, if they commit any malicious act against the Iranian nation, they will receive a severe blow.”
But Tehran’s position in the region appears to have weakened amid the ongoing war in Gaza and beyond.
Israel, for example, killed the top political and military leadership of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran’s once-fearsome ally. Iran lost another key partner after armed opposition groups toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December of last year.
“I think they’re concerned, I think they feel vulnerable, and I don’t want them to feel that way,” Trump said on Thursday, referring to Iran.
