US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is prepared to attack Iran if nuclear talks fail, a day after indirect talks between Washington and Tehran, which both sides described as “constructive”.
“If we can’t resolve this at the negotiating table, there are other options to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear bomb,” Pete Hegseth told Fox News.
“What we are doing against the Houthis and in the region, we have shown our ability to go far, deep and very strong (…). We don’t want to get to that point, but if necessary, we will do it to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb – the US defense secretary added.
Negotiations continue
The two countries, without diplomatic relations since 1980, held talks on Saturday with the mediation of Oman.
Hegseth described the talks as “very constructive”, which was also the opinion of Tehran, and they are scheduled to continue on April 19.
Indirect talks between Iran and the United States lasted just over two hours on Saturday in Muscat, the capital of Oman, where the delegations were in separate rooms and Omani officials delivered messages.
Iranian state television reported that Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “talked briefly” in the presence of the Omani foreign minister at the end of the meeting.
The nuclear dispute and Trump’s policies
Western countries, led by the United States, have suspected for decades that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons, while sanctions-hit Iran insists its nuclear activities are exclusively civilian.
The United States withdrew from the international nuclear deal with Iran in 2018, in part because of a lack of measures against Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is seen as a threat to US ally Israel.
Donald Trump has decided in his second term to launch new negotiations with Tehran on the nuclear deal.
At the same time, the American president threatened to bomb Iran if diplomacy failed, and introduced additional sanctions on Iran’s oil sector.
