United States President Donald Trump has doubled down his threat to use military force on Iran if it does not end its nuclear program, adding that Israel would lead the military action.
During his previous term Trump pulled the U.S. from the 2015 Obama-era deal between Iran and world leaders, which saw Tehran receive eased sanctions in exchange for heavily reduced uranium enrichment and stockpiling, and additionally reimposed broad U.S. sanctions.
Since then, Iran has far surpassed that deal's limits on uranium enrichment, but maintains its nuclear program is only for civilian energy purposes.
Talking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump repeated his stance that Iran must not have nuclear weapons and that military action was on the cards if development didn't stop.
"I'm not asking for much ... but they can't have a nuclear weapon," he said, after signing several new executive orders.
“If it requires military, we're going to have military. Israel will, obviously, be ... the leader of that. No one leads us. We do what we want.”
This followed his surprising announcement earlier in the week that the U.S. and Iran were looking to organise direct talks on the nuclear program, after Iran had rejected the idea at the end of last month.
Iran's state media reported that talks would be held in Oman and led by Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and U.S. Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff, and mediated by Oman's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi.
Trump declined to address when any military action might begin, instead only alluding to talks “not going along well” as a deciding factor.
