US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States was getting very close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran, and Tehran had “sort of” agreed to the terms.
“We’re in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace,” Trump said on a tour of the Gulf.
“We’re getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this… There are two steps to doing this: there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don’t want to do it the second way,” he said.
An Iranian source familiar with the negotiations said there were still gaps to bridge in the talks with the United States.
Fresh talks between Iranian and US negotiators to resolve disputes over Tehran’s nuclear programme ended in Oman on Sunday with further negotiations planned, officials said, as Tehran publicly insisted on continuing its uranium enrichment.
Though Tehran and Washington have both said they prefer diplomacy to resolve the decades-long nuclear dispute, they remain divided on several red lines that negotiators will have to circumvent to reach a new deal and avert future military action.
