President Donald Trump will only strike a peace deal with Iran if Tehran meets all of his conditions, a White House official told AFP after the US president met with aides to discuss a potential agreement.
“The Situation Room meeting has concluded and lasted approximately two hours. President Trump will only make a deal that is good for America and satisfies his red lines,” the White House official said on condition of anonymity.
“Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon.”
Trump had earlier stated that he had ordered US negotiators “not to rush into a deal” with Iran, amid growing expectations and criticism of an accord to end the Middle East conflict.
“The negotiations are proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner, and I have informed my representatives not to rush into a deal in that time is on our side,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
“The blockade will remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed.”
The United States has imposed an embargo on Iranian ports since April 13, after Tehran essentially stopped transportation through the economically critical Strait of Hormuz in reaction to US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran that began on February 28.
“Both sides must take their time and get it right,” Trump wrote in the same Truth Social post while slamming the 2015 nuclear deal that former president Barack Obama agreed to with Iran.
“Our relationship with Iran is becoming much more professional and productive. They must understand, however, that they cannot develop or procure a nuclear weapon or bomb,” Trump wrote.
While the White House has not published parts of the accord, Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei claimed Saturday on state television that the two sides were negotiating “a memorandum of understanding, a kind of framework agreement composed of 14 clauses,” in “a trend toward rapprochement.”
Several voices, notably among Republican members close to Trump, expressed fears of an agreement beneficial to Iran as claimed details of the deal that began to leak.
According to Axios, a prospective compromise would extend the present ceasefire by 60 days, during which time the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened, Iran would be allowed to sell oil, and negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program would resume.
The main Republican senator in charge of military policy, Roger Wicker, stated that agreeing to a “rumored 60-day ceasefire” with Iran would mean that “everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!”
Fellow Republican senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham have also expressed objection to Iran potentially getting perks such as the right to freely sell its oil.
“If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime — still run by Islamists who chant ‘death to America’ — now receiving billions of dollars, being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake,” Cruz, a Republican from Texas, wrote on X.
Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said the deal “doesn’t make sense to me.”
“We were told about 11 weeks ago by (Secretary of Defense Pete) Hegseth and the Department of Defense that they had obliterated Iran’s defenses, and it was just a matter of time before we had the nuclear material.
“Now we’re talking about a posture where we may accept the nuclear material remaining in Iran. How does that make sense at all?” Tillis said on CNN’s “State of the Union” morning program.
