US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States and Iran were beginning direct talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, a surprise announcement after Iranian officials had appeared to rebuff US calls for such negotiations.
But in a sign of the difficult path ahead to any deal between the two geopolitical foes, Trump issued a stark warning that if the talks are unsuccessful, “Iran is going to be in great danger”.
Iran had no immediate official response to Trump’s remarks. It had pushed back against Trump’s demands in recent weeks that it directly negotiate over its nuclear programme or be bombed, but it had recently left the door open to indirect discussions.
“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during talks with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable,” Trump said.
Trump said Saturday’s talks with Iran would be at a very high level but declined to elaborate. He also declined to say where the talks would take place but held out the possibility that a deal could be reached.