• “I think they will meet,” the US president says of Iran’s attitude.
• Trump believes direct conversations are better, but Iran presses for indirect conversations.
• He gave Iranians two-month deadline to reach a new nuclear deal.
  

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would have “direct conversations” with Tehran about a nuclear deal after he threatened to bomb Iran if it develops nuclear weapons.

Trump has given Iran’s leaders a two-month deadline to reach an agreement on the country’s nuclear program that has strained relations with Western nations for decades.

Western countries, including the United States, have long accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon that Tehran has denied, insisting that its enrichment activities were solely for peaceful purposes.

“I think it’s better if we have direct conversations,” he told journalists aboard the Presidential Plane Air Force One. “I think it goes faster and you understand the other side much better than if you go through intermediaries.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last week that Tehran would not participate in direct conversations with Washington “until there is a change in the second side’s approach to the Islamic Republic”.

In his first period, Trump reven a nuclear deal in 2015, which was negotiated by predecessor Barack Obama and reintroduced paralyzing sanctions against Iran.

The trade, sealed between Tehran and the World Powers, had demanded that Iran restrict its nuclear ambitions in exchange for the relief of sanctions.

“They wanted to use intermediaries. I don’t think it’s necessarily true anymore,” Trump said.

“I think they’re worried I think they feel vulnerable. I don’t want them to feel like that,” he added. “I think they’ll meet.”

Trump said last month he had written to Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to call for nuclear negotiations and warn of possible military action if Tehran refused.

Trump gave the Iranians a two-month deadline to reach a new nuclear deal.

In response, Tehran has only agreed on indirect negotiations. It has excluded any direct conversations while under a US policy on “maximum pressure”, according to The conversation.

Khamenei replied by saying that American threats “will get them nowhere” and warned of mutual measures “if they do something malignant” against Iran.

Last week, Trump said “There will be bombing” of Iran if it does not fall its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. In recent days, US B-2 bombers and warships have been deployed to the region of a power show.