War very close to over; Iran wants to make a deal ‘very badly’: Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump said that the Iran war is close to being over. He said he could devastate the country and it would take Iran 20 years to rebuild it. Trump said Iran wants to make a deal “very badly”. 

During an interview with Fox News, Trump was asked if the war is ending. To this he said, “I think it is close to over…I view it as very close to over. You know what, if I pulled my stakes right now, they would take 20 years to rebuild that country, and we are not finished. We will see what happens, I think they want to make a deal very badly.”

Trump also said if Iran had a nuclear weapon, they would be calling everybody over there ‘sir’. “And you don’t wanna do that,” he added.

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Trump’s remarks come amid reports of another round of talks between Iran and the US in Islamabad. The first round of talks, held in the Pakistani capital over the past weekend, yielded no result. 

US VP JD Vance said Trump wanted to make a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran but there was a lot of mistrust between the two countries. “You are not going to solve that problem overnight,” Vance said.

A major issue in the negotiations was Iran’s nuclear programme. The US proposed a 20-year suspension of all nuclear activities by Iran, while Tehran suggested a halt of three to five years. The US also demanded the removal of any enriched nuclear material from Iran.

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According to a Reuters source involved in the Pakistan talks, backchannel discussions since the weekend have made progress in narrowing differences, bringing the two sides closer to a possible deal for upcoming negotiations. However, the complexity of the 2015 nuclear deal, which the US left in 2018, and the need for monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency make a quick agreement uncertain.

Iran has also called for the removal of international sanctions, a demand the US cannot guarantee on its own.