President Donald Trump is "less confident" about reaching an agreement with Iran for it to end weapons-grade uranium enrichment, but insisted the nation will not be getting a nuclear weapon.
"They seem to be delaying, and I think that's a shame, but I'm less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago," Trump told the New York Post's Miranda Devine on her new podcast, "Pod Force One," to air Wednesday. "Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made."
Trump said he had thought he could convince the Middle Eastern nation to agree to shut down the enrichment program, but now he is becoming "more and more — less confident about it."
With or without reaching a deal with the United States, Trump insisted Iran will not get its hands on a nuclear weapon.
"Well, if they don't make a deal, they're not going to have a nuclear weapon," Trump said. "If they do make a deal, they're not going to have a nuclear weapon, too, you know?
"But they're not going to have a new nuclear weapon, so it's not going to matter from that standpoint."
Coming to an agreement, he added, would be "nicer to do" without "warfare, without people dying."
"But I don't think I see the same level of enthusiasm for them to make a deal," Trump said. "I think they would make a mistake, but we'll see. I guess time will tell."
Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, has been involved in indirect talks with Iran for some time, including previously floating the idea for Iran to continue enriching uranium but only for civilian purposes.
Trump told Devine that he does not believe China influenced Iran to resist the United States' push for a deal, commenting he thinks "maybe they don't want" to come to an agreement.
According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a European-based opposition group, Tehran has spent an estimated $2 trillion on its nuclear development program over the past 30 years, potentially outpacing the regime's oil revenue since 1979.
The NCRI warned Tuesday the money has been directed to the "Kavir Plan," the regime's new covert nuclear weapons development activity.
The NCRI has revealed four locations, all in or near the north-central Semnan Province, that it believes to be associated with the plan.
Meanwhile, Russia has signed a contract with Iran to build eight nuclear power plants, with four to be built in Bushehr, a district in the southern part of the nation, according to an announcement by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization.
While Iran says has no plans to develop nuclear weapon and is only interested in atomic power generation and other peaceful projects, it's supreme leader said full enrichment will not be taken off the table.
Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a potential way to narrow U.S.-Iranian differences.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control and U.S. relations, told Russian media that efforts to reach a solution should be redoubled and that Moscow was willing to help in practical ways.
"We are ready to provide assistance to both Washington and Tehran, not only politically, not only in the form of ideas that could be of use in the negotiation process, but also practically: for example, through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors," Ryabkov said.
He did not make clear whether the nuclear fuel would then be returned to Iran for use in its civil nuclear energy program, which Moscow has helped develop.
During his first White House term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed limits on Tehran's uranium enrichment drive in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
Information from Reuters was used to compile this report.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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