US President Donald Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin made proposals regarding Iran’s enriched uranium — a key issue to any US-Iran peace deal — but Trump said he would prefer that the Kremlin focus first on ending its war with Ukraine.
“I said, ‘I’d much rather have you be involved with ending the war with Ukraine,'” Trump related, summing up details from his April 29 phone call with Putin.
“I said, before you help me, I want to end your war,” Trump added.
Trump did not provide the details of Putin’s offer to help on Iran, but the Kremlin has previously proposed that it could take enriched uranium out of Iran to be safeguarded, s suggestion most Western leaders have flatly rejected.
Trump has demanded that Tehran give up its nuclear program and hand over any already enriched uranium — which could be used in an atomic bomb — as prerequisites to a peace deal.
Iran has insisted its nuclear program is strictly for civilian purposes and has rejected handing over its enriched uranium supply, which reportedly is buried in sites deep underground.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Putin in the call “highlighted the inevitable and extremely damaging consequences not only for Iran and its neighbors, but also for the entire international community, should the US and Israel resort to military action once again.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump reiterated his demand that Tehran give up any plans for a nuclear bomb.
“At this point, there will never be a deal unless Iran says it will never have nuclear weapons.”
Trump also repeated his assertion that the US military has destroyed Iran’s navy and air force and devastated the country’s economy.
The US president said he was not ready to send negotiators to meet the Iranian team in Islamabad for Pakistani-mediated peace talks because, in his words, flying 18 hours to be handed a piece of paper with demands you know you will not accept makes no sense.
“We are doing talks telephonically,” he added. He went on to say that Iran “has gone a long way” already negotiating a peace deal with the US, but “we’ll have to see if they will go far enough.”
Trump made the comments during a ceremony honoring the Artemis II astronauts, who earlier in the month circled the moon and returned safely to Earth.
