Last night (between Thursday and Friday), Trump made an unusual and extraordinary statement from his perspective - and clarified that he intends to reach an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. "The circumstances are impossible," the former president said at a press conference in New York.
Trump was considered during his presidency to be a harsh critic of the nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration in 2015, and left it unilaterally in May 2018. Last night he expressed for the first time a willingness to return to the agreement.
"Would you make a deal with Iran?" Trump was asked, and replied: "Sure, I'll do it. The moment I confirm the people, we must reach an agreement, because the circumstances are impossible. We must make a deal." He also said that if he had been elected in 2020, he would have been ready to do it "within a week."
Trump did not retract his previous policy that was clearly against the nuclear deal, and accused the Biden administration that its policy now requires reaching an agreement with Iran. "They (Biden and Harris) could have done it too, but they had no idea. I gave them a country (Iran) that wants to make a deal - there was no money for Hamas and no money for Hezbollah because Iran owed the money. Now Iran has 300 billion dollars that they made over the last three and a half years," Trump criticized.
"The sanctions have been lifted, they have subsidies from Iraq, so Iran is a very rich country," the former president continued. "It's very sad to see this, but Iran is now a strong force because it's very rich. [In my time] Iran wasn't rich, there was no money to take care of terrorist organizations."
Trump's words come at the end of a week in which Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi expressed their willingness to renew nuclear talks. The two visited the UN General Assembly in New York this week and promoted the current government's policy in Tehran calling for renewed relations with the West and revival of nuclear talks - in order to bring about the removal of the many sanctions imposed on Iran.
Iran's nuclear program is currently at its most advanced stage ever. It is estimated that it would take Iran only a few days to reach the required amount of enriched uranium to develop a nuclear weapon - if it chooses to do so. Iran, for its part, continues to claim that it is not working to obtain nuclear weapons.
Channel 12 contributed to this article.