Trump threatens to bomb Iran as Tehran refuses direct negotiations on nuclear program
- 31 March, 06:53
US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his threats to Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program. In remarks aired Sunday by NBC News, Trump warned that Iran would be bombed and face secondary tariffs if it rejects negotiations over its nuclear weapons. “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before," Trump warned.
“But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago,” the US leader said, adding that Washington and Tehran are "talking," without providing further details of these negotiations.
Trump’s comments were in response to Iran’s announcement that it would not engage in direction negotiations with the White House over its nuclear deal. In the first response to Trump’s letter sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in March, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday revealed that his country could only engage in indirect negotiations with the United States.
“We responded to the US president’s letter via Oman and rejected the option of direct talks, but we are open to indirect negotiations,” President Pezeshkian said during a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Sunday.
Stressing that Tehran was not against negotiations with US, Pezeshkian advised Washington to rectify its past “misconduct” and rebuild trust before any talks could take place. “We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far. They must prove that they can build trust,” Pezeshkian said.
The Iranian leader reminded that the talks with Washington failed after Trump withdrew US from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers during his first term in presidency. Failure to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program has been the source of tension between US and the Islamic Republic in the past few years. Compounding these tensions have been US deadly air strikes on Iranian-backed Houthi group in Yemen.
