The letter suggests creating a new framework to restrain Iran’s ability to create a nuclear weapon following Trump’s 2018 decision to terminate a previous deal.
President Donald Trump is seeking to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran to replace the one he withdrew from during his first term in office.
Trump sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei this week in the hopes of creating a new framework to restrain Tehran’s ability to rapidly advance its nuclear program, though there has not yet been official confirmation that Khamenei has received the letter.
Trump acknowledged the letter in a segment of an interview given to Fox Business News this week, which has not been fully released.
“I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing,’” Trump said.
“I hope [they’re] going to negotiate because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran, and I think they want to get that letter,” Trump added. “The other alternative is we have to do something because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump made the remarks as leadership in the United States and Israel mull the possibility of using military intervention to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Both Washington and Jerusalem have vowed to never let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon and signed a joint declaration to that effect under the Biden administration in 2022.
Tehran does not have any weapons of mass destruction at present but has continued to enrich uranium at near weapons-grade levels since Trump unilaterally terminated a bilateral nuclear agreement in 2018 that had placed limits on such activities.
There is some concern now that the regime could quickly accelerate the creation of a nuclear warhead and equip it to a missile within a short period of time.
Since Trump returned to the White House, his administration has consistently said that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. A report last month by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, however, said Iran had accelerated its production of near-weapons-grade uranium.
The report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran has roughly 605 pounds of uranium enriched up to a 60 percent threshold.
That purity is a short technical step away from being converted to the 90 percent required for a nuclear weapon. What’s more, the 605-pound mark presents about a 40 percent increase in the quantity of Iran’s enriched uranium since last August.
According to the report, it requires about 92.5 pounds of enriched uranium at that level to produce a nuclear warhead, suggesting Tehran could produce about half a dozen such weapons at present if it so chose.
Relations between Trump and Khamenei have been strained for years following the U.S. leader’s withdrawal from a previous nuclear deal and the assassination of a top Iranian general in 2020.
To that end, Khamenei rebuffed Trump’s first suggestion that a new nuclear agreement could be reached last month, saying that “there should be no negotiations with such a government.”
“The Americans did not uphold their end of the deal,” Khamenei said. “The very person who is in office today tore up the agreement. He said he would, and he did.”
The White House confirmed Trump’s comments about the letter to Khamenei this week, saying that he sent a letter to Iran’s leaders seeking to negotiate a nuclear deal.
“I would rather negotiate a deal,” Trump said in the Fox interview. “I’m not sure that everybody agrees with me, but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily. But the time is happening now. The time is coming up. Something’s going to happen one way or the other.”
Iran officially maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Still, leaders in Tehran have openly threatened to pursue nuclear weapons due to high tensions related to Washington’s sanctions regime and Jerusalem’s fight against Iranian-backed proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Whether or not there is any appetite for a deal in Tehran remains to be seen.
Khamenei said in a speech last August that there was “no harm” in engaging with the “enemy.”
He recently walked back on those comments, however, saying that negotiations with the United States “are not intelligent, wise, or honorable.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.