With no clarity on the peace negotiations between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, US President Donald Trump on Sunday issued a fresh threat to Tehran, saying that he will “blow the hell out of them” if a deal is not signed.
“We are very close to a deal, but if negotiations fail, I’m gonna blow the hell out of them,” Trump told NBC News.
The US President said that he doesn’t like endless wars and claimed much of the conflict has been under a “pretty good ceasefire”.
“I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months; much of it has been under a pretty good form of ceasefire,” he said.
He also suggested that Washington is open to sending the military to retrieve or destroy Iran’s highly enriched uranium on-site if a deal is made.
“If we make a deal now and are friendly, we’ll all go together. It’ll be our equipment. We’ll take it out and destroy it, whether it’s on-site or whether we take it off-site,” the US President said.
He also denied that he had ever pledged not to start new wars. “Well, well. First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” he added.
Iran alleges US stalling peace talks
Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has said that the ongoing negotiations with the US remain stalled primarily because of Washington’s “changing and contradictory” positions and constantly “moving the goalposts.”
“The main problem with negotiating with this administration is that you have to face so many changing positions, moving the goalposts, different statements, and contradictory remarks by different officials, so it makes the whole process very cumbersome,” he said in an interview with CNN.
He also contradicted US claims that a deal is around the corner, saying several sticking points remain in the discussions to reach a memorandum of understanding.
The official also demanded the unconditional release of frozen Iranian assets, asserting that such a move would not be considered a concession to Tehran.
“At the same time, when they are talking about our blocked assets, they’re not going to give us any concession,” Baghaei added.