No Deal Until Iran Agrees There Will Be No Nuclear Weapon, Says Trump

Washington: On imposing a naval blockade on Iran, US President Donald J Trump on Wednesday said, “The blockade is genius. It has been 100 % foolproof. It shows how good our Navy is. Nobody’s going to play games… We are not anymore, taking 18 hours of flight, just to see a piece of paper… I always like to meet face to face… But when you have to fly 18 hours every time you want to have a meeting, and you know what the meeting is all about, and you know they’re going to give you a piece of paper that you don’t like before you even leave, it’s ridiculous…”

“At this moment, there will never be a deal unless they agree that there will be no nuclear weapons…” the US President said.

Trump said earlier this month that the government of Iran was “seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so”. Ghalibaf, a powerful figure, has grown in prominence since the start of the war and was the lead negotiator in the so far only round of direct US-Iranian talks.

On the other hand, Iran’s speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has emerged as a figurehead since the start of the Middle East war, said on Wednesday (April 29) the United States’ naval blockade of the country aimed to create division and “make us collapse from within”.

He said U.S. President Donald Trump “divides the country into two groups: hardliners and moderates, and then immediately talks about a naval blockade to force Iran into submission through economic pressure and internal discord,” state TV reported.

With the killing of numerous Iranian leaders by U.S.-Israeli strikes, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei, there has been widespread speculation over the balance of power within the Islamic republic.