The President of the United States said this Thursday, February 19, that it was necessary to reach a “meaningful” agreement with Iran on the nuclear program, otherwise “bad things will happen” and gave a period of ten days to reach an understanding.
Donald Trump’s position was announced on the sidelines of the first meeting of the Peace Council, in Washington, having set a deadline to find out whether or not it is possible to reach an agreement.
“Maybe we have to go further, or maybe not, maybe we’ll reach an agreement. You’ll probably know in the next ten days,” said Trump, at a time when the US reinforced its military presence in the Middle East.
Still, Donald Trump stated that, within the scope of negotiations with Tehran, US envoys – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the US president – had “some very good meetings” with the Iranian delegation, but said there was work to be done and reinforced the need to “reach a meaningful agreement”, warning of consequences if this does not happen.
“Now is the time for Iran to join us on a path that completes what we are doing. If they join us, that will be great. If they don’t join, that will also be great, but it will be a very different path.”warned Trump. “They can’t have a nuclear weapon, it’s very simple,” he said. “You cannot have peace in the Middle East if you have a nuclear weapon”, he stressed.
Last Tuesday, US and Iranian delegations were in Geneva, Switzerland, for negotiations on the nuclear agreement. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi announced that there was an understanding of the “guiding principles” of dialogue between the two countries, but acknowledged that there was still work to be done.
On the US side, as North American sources told Reuters, “progress has been made” in these negotiations, although there are “many details to discuss”, with concrete proposals expected from Tehran within two weeks.
Naval exercises between Russia and Iran are scheduled for this Thursday in the waters of the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean, with the aim of developing joint maritime cooperation and strengthening relations between the navies of the two countries.
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