“I wrote a letter to them”: Trump enjoins Iran to conclude a “deal” on nuclear power

In a spectacular development of which he has the secret, Donald Trump said on Friday that he wrote to Iran to propose negotiations aimed at preventing the development by Tehran of nuclear weapons. The stormy tenant of the White House also brandished the threat of military intervention and warned that the “final moment” was approaching. “Something will happen very soon,” he threatened.

“I wrote a letter to them by saying that I hope you are going to negotiate because if we have to attack militarily, it will be a terrible thing for them,” said the American president in an interview with the Fox Business channel, broadcast on Friday. “You cannot let them have nuclear weapons,” he added, saying that he wrote the Iranian Supreme Guide on Thursday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Speaking a few hours later in the oval office, the republican billionaire warned that “something will happen very soon, very soon”. “I hope we can conclude a peace agreement. You know, I am not talking about strength or weakness. I just say that I prefer a peace agreement to the other (alternative). But the other (alternative) will solve the problem, “he told journalists, without specifying. “But we are approaching the end moment. We are at the end. (You can’t) let them have a nuclear weapon, “he added.

Since his return to power in January, the tenant of the White House has been favorable to negotiations with Iran to supervise his nuclear program. But it also strengthened the sanctions against Tehran specifically aimed at Iranian oil sales. He also replaced the so-called “maximum pressures” policy implemented during his first mandate (2017-2021), in order to weaken the country economically and isolate it on the international scene. Trump’s opening gesture could be badly received in Israel, which led strikes in Iran last year.

Téhéran ending

In an interview with AFP, Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi, who did not respond directly to Trump’s letter, Iran would not resume negotiations with Washington on his nuclear program as long as President Trump remains on a hard position.

“We will not attack any direct negotiations with the United States as long as it will continue its maximum pressure policy and threats,” said Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of a meeting of the Islamic Cooperation Organization in Jeddah. He also assured that the Iranian nuclear program “cannot be destroyed” by a military attack, and warned that an Israeli attack against Iran would trigger a “general conflagration” in the Middle East.

In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the United States had withdrawn from the International Iranian Nuclear Agreement concluded three years earlier, which supervised Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for alleging sanctions against him. In retaliation, Tehran had returned to his commitments and advanced his nuclear program.

According to a confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA), Iran has “very worrying” its uranium reserves enriched at 60 %, a threshold close to the 90 % necessary to make a nuclear weapon. Iran said, however, that its nuclear program only exists for civil ends, especially for energy, and denies wanting to acquire nuclear weapons.

In the maintenance on Fox Business, Donald Trump assured that there were two ways of putting an end to the development by Iran of nuclear weapons, “militarily or by an agreement”. “I would prefer to conclude an agreement because I don’t want to hurt Iran,” he said.

The American president also said on February 5 to be in favor of a “peace agreement” with Iran, a sworn enemy of the United States since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The hand stretched in Iran occurs at a time when Tehran appears very weak, having undergone several setbacks in the region since the attack on Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel has devastated the Iranian air defenses and eliminated the leaders of two of its allies, Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah. And its main regional ally, Bashar al-Assad, was ousted from power in Syria in December by Sunni Islamist fighters.