US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that if a deal with Iran to end the war was reached and signed in Islamabad, he might go there, claiming that Iran had agreed to almost everything.
He also said that the US and Iran were “very close” to signing a peace deal.
Trump struck an optimistic tone about Iran as he spoke with reporters on the White House lawn on his way to a trip to Nevada and Arizona.
Pakistan’s civil and military leadership has been engaged in feverish diplomacy, seeking to bring the US and Iran back to the negotiating table after the Islamabad Talks over the weekend yielded no result. Now, there are reports that the negotiating teams from the US and Iran could return to Islamabad.
The talks were held as a Pakistan-brokered two-week ceasefire between Washington and Tehran remained in effect. The ceasefire paused hostilities that began with the US-Israeli strikes on February 28.
During the conversation at the White House, Trump was asked if he would go to Pakistan to seal the deal himself, to which he replied: “I would go to Pakistan. Pakistan has been great. They have been so great … if the deal is signed in Islamabad, I might go.”
He added that Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, who is visiting Iran as part of the mediation effort, had been great, and so had been Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
He also said he could extend the US-Iran ceasefire set to expire next week, but may not need to do so.
Moreover, without providing evidence, he claimed Iran had agreed to give up the enriched uranium believed buried from US-Israeli airstrikes last year.
Trump is pushing for a deal with Iran in which Tehran would give up its nuclear programme.
“We had to make sure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon … They’ve totally agreed to that. They’ve agreed to almost everything, so maybe if they can get to the table, there’s a difference,” he claimed.
More to follow
