Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that Iran is “pretty close” to signing a peace agreement with the US and that “it could happen over the weekend”.
“Anything can happen when you’re dealing with Iran … That’s a very volatile part of the world, probably the most volatile part of the world. The people are volatile. The leadership, you see what’s going on,” he said.
But he went on to say that negotiations were going well and that Tehran and Washington could reach an agreement within days. He maintained that the heart of the negotiations come down to Iran agreeing to never own, develop or buy a nuclear weapon.
Trump said that given the strength of the US military, “we could go another two, three weeks and just wipe everybody out”.
“I’d rather not do that,” he said. “It’s very easy to do. They’re ready to do it, they want to do it but if we can get something down in writing that can accomplish the same thing without killing everybody, I’d like to do that. Most of my people would like to do that. Some people wouldn’t, but most people would.”