U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Friday he was willing to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran if elected. “I would do that,” Trump said without elaborating on the potential deal’s details. “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.”
Trump's statements, made in the context of his tight race against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, are notable given the hostility he previously demonstrated toward Tehran — both as president and during his campaign.
Trump's campaign claimed this week that U.S. intelligence informed him that Iran was planning an assassination attempt on his life. According to Politico, Trump's comments were aimed at easing tensions with the Iranian regime.
Trump said that he would have been ready to reach an agreement with Iran within a week after the elections were he reelected in 2020. " I would’ve made a fair deal with Iran. I was gonna get along with Iran. The deal was simple: Iran can’t have a nuclear missile. It cannot have that nuclear capability," he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who arrived for the annual UN General Assembly in New York alongside Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, said that Tehran was ready to resume nuclear talks. He noted that Iran is prepared to restart negotiations "if the other parties are also ready," to do so.
The 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers collapsed after Trump decided to withdraw from the agreement and reinstate sanctions on Iran. Iran has since violated many of the agreement’s clauses.
In his speech at the UN this week, Iran's president stressed that Tehran was willing to cooperate with major powers to save the agreement. Pezeshkian said in his address that the sanctions against the Islamic Republic are "inhumane" and harm Iranian residents.