WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said he was less confident that Iran will agree to stop uranium enrichment in a nuclear deal with Washington, according to an interview released on Wednesday.
“I don’t know,” Trump told the “Pod Force One” podcast on Monday when asked if he thought he could get Iran to agree to shut down its nuclear program. “I don’t know. I did think so, and I’m getting more and more — less confident about it.”
Trump has been seeking a new nuclear deal to place limits on Iran’s nuclear activities and has threatened Tehran with bombing if no agreement is reached.
He told reporters at the White House on Monday that he had discussed Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and said talks with Iranians were “tough.”
In the podcast interview, Trump said Iranians seem to be using delaying tactics.
“I’m less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made,” he said.
Trump repeated that the U.S. would not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, whether or not a deal is reached.
“But it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying, it’s so much nicer to do it. But I don’t think I see the same level of enthusiasm for them to make a deal,” he said.
Iran says it has no plans to build a nuclear weapon and is only interested in power generation and other peaceful projects.
During his first White House term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed limits on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
(Reporting by Doina ChiacuEditing by Peter Graff and Andrew Heavens)
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