Trump says US is holding direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program, ‘at almost the highest level’

US President Donald Trump reveals that the US is holding direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump says the talks have started and will continue on Saturday.

“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen. And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable,” Trump tells reporters, with Netanyahu at his side.

הרגע בו הנשיא טראמפ בישר על המו"מ הישיר לדבריו עם איראן. pic.twitter.com/E2hxiNrf9V

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Trump says he hopes to reach a deal because the alternative is not something he wants to be involved in.

“I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. The obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or frankly that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it,” he says, evidently referring to military intervention to tackle the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. “So we’ll see if we can avoid it… It’s getting to be very dangerous territory.”

He says he hopes the talks will be successful, and that it is in “Iran’s best interest” that they are.

“Maybe a deal’s going to be made; that would be great. It would be really great for Iran…  We are meeting very importantly on Saturday, at almost the highest level,” he says.

Asked how a deal he negotiates with Iran would be different from the 2015 JCPOA from which he withdrew in his first term, Trump says: “It’ll be different and maybe a lot stronger.”

Trump says he cannot disclose where the Iran talks are being held, and he acknowledges that the talks might not be successful.

Asked whether the US would take military action to destroy the Iranian nuclear program if the talks are not successful, Trump says that “Iran will be in great danger” if the talks fail. “I hate to say it. Great danger… It’s not a complicated formula… Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon…. If the talks aren’t successful…, it’ll be a very bad day for Iran.”