President Trump suggested that a nuclear deal with Iran could be announced within days, saying a potential agreement is “down to the final strokes.”
“That’s going to be the next thing you’ll be talking about, Iran,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. “There’ll be some interesting days ahead. That’s all I can tell you. You know we’re down to the final strokes with Iran. That’s going to be an interesting time, and we’ll see what happens.”
He added, “We’re down to the final moments. Can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks come after he announced that he wrote a letter to Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, calling for the country to negotiate a new nuclear deal with the U.S.
“I’ve written him 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,’” Mr. Trump said during an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” which will air in full on Sunday.
On Friday, Mr. Trump told reporters that Iran was close to reaching a deal with his administration in 2020 but backed out after he lost the election to Joseph R. Biden.
“When I lost, they saw this person, who is a stupid person, a very stupid person, and they said, ’Let’s not make a deal,” Mr. Trump said. “He took the sanctions off and they became richer under Biden.”
Mr. Trump’s statement comes as Israel and the U.S. have pledged that they will never let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon. Tehran has been enriching uranium to levels close to those needed for nuclear arms.
On Wednesday, the president said on social media that he wants Iran to “be a great and successful country, but one that cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
He added, “Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens are greatly exaggerated.”
Mr. Trump’s hard-line stance on Iran echoes the approach he used during his first term when he withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal struck in 2015 under President Barack Obama.
