U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that technical talks with the Iranian regime in Doha were going “very good.”
Tehran has “come a long way” in implementing the Memorandum of Understanding signed on June 17 and was “getting along very well” with the United States, Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews.
“We hit them very hard last week,” Trump said when asked about reports he had considered resuming all-out war with Iran. He added, “I think they’re fine.”
“It’s the denuclearization of Iran—it’s very simple. And Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” the president said.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the regime’s top negotiator, said on Tuesday that Tehran would not take part in further talks until the conditions outlined in the MoU were met, including an end to the fighting on all war fronts. He said the current negotiations were aimed at ensuring the United States fulfilled its commitments.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday that the negotiations still had “a lot more game to play,” adding that Trump was “constantly trying to figure out how to gain an edge for the American people.”
“One of the things I find just fascinating and frustrating about the Iranians is they’ll say, ‘no, no, there aren’t peace talks ongoing, but there are technical talks between the United States and Iran about the peace deal,’” he said in an interview with the “The Michael Knowles Show” podcast.
“It’s a Persian negotiating tactic and a Persian rhetorical device that I don’t understand, but that is the way that the Iranians have done this,” according to Vance.
