Trump says Iran wants more talks

President Trump said Monday that Iran had reached out for another round of negotiations after the 21-hour meeting in Islamabad over the weekend failed to yield a breakthrough.

“We’ve been called by the other side,” he told reporters outside the Oval Office. “They’d like to make a deal very badly.”

The president confirmed the biggest sticking point was the country’s nuclear ambitions.

“Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “We agreed to a lot of things, but they didn’t agree to that, and I think they will agree to it. I’m almost sure of it. In fact, I am sure of it. If they don’t agree, there’s no deal. There’ll never be a deal.”

President Trump also said the U.S. would acquire the uranium already enriched by Iran one way or another.

“We’re going to get the dust back. We’ll get it back,” he said. “Either we’ll get it back from them or we’ll take it.”

The president also spoke about the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which went into effect 10am ET on Monday as part of an effort to cut Iran’s leverage over the critical oil transit route.

“We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world,” he said. “We don’t need the strait, we have our own oil, gas — much more than we need.”

He added that “other countries” had agreed to help the U.S. blockade the strait but declined to name any.

“We don’t need other countries, frankly. But they’ve offered their services,” he said. “We’ll let it be known, probably tomorrow.”

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