WASHINGTON, Aug 17 — United States (US) President Donald Trump has said that Iran would not make the deal he thinks is needed to end a war with the US and should surrender as talks between the countries remained stalled.
"They are not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary. Look, we are in there for one reason: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," he told the media in the Oval Office.
When asked whether the US was seeking to extend an interim deal with Iran, Trump said "no."
The interim deal agreed to in June declared an "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts," but quickly unravelled, with the President saying it was "over" on July 7 and Iran's Foreign Ministry declaring it "suspended" a week later.
Under that memorandum of understanding, Iran and the US committed to negotiating a final deal — covering broader issues such as the fate of Iran's nuclear programme — within 60 days, with the deadline extendable by mutual consent. Monday marks 60 days since the MOU was signed.
Hours before, Trump told a Fox News reporter during a phone interview that Iran "should put up the white flag of surrender."
Separately, Oman and Iran have been in talks to try to reach an agreement to restore commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which carried 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies before the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.
"If Oman gets in the way, we will bomb the shit out of them," Trump told Fox.
When asked later in the Oval Office if he was out of patience with Oman, he told the media: "No, I do not think they behaved very well, but we would handle them very easily, just like we do other things."
The dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up fuel prices and put pressure on Trump to end a war that is unpopular at home ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of the US Congress.
Trump told Fox News that the midterms were not impacting his strategy on Iran.
"Midterms have nothing to do with my thinking," he said.
Earlier on Monday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: "The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon," repeating one of his stated rationales for the war.
