Washington: President Donald Trump on Thursday issued a stark warning to Iran, declaring that the United States would not allow Tehran to acquire a nuclear weapon and saying failure to stop it could trigger a wider conflict stretching beyond the Middle East.
Trump told reporters that preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power was his administration’s top foreign policy priority.
“We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “You will have a nuclear war in the Middle East, and that war will come here, that war will go to Europe.”
Trump said negotiations with Iran were continuing but insisted the outcome would be a decisive one way or another.
“Right now we’re negotiating, and we’ll see. But either we’re going to get it one way or the other,” he said. “They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”
The President also addressed reports that Iran was discussing plans with Oman to formalise toll charges on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil shipping lanes. Trump said the United States wanted the waterway to remain open and free for international navigation.
“We want it open, we want it free. We don’t want tolls,” he said, describing the Strait as “an international waterway”.
Trump claimed the US military had established effective control over maritime traffic linked to Iran through naval operations in the region.
“There hasn’t been a ship that’s been able to get through without our approval,” he said. “The Navy has done an amazing job.”
He further asserted that US military strikes and operations had severely degraded Iranian military capabilities.
“We wiped out their navy. We wiped out their air,” Trump said. “I would say we knocked out 85 per cent of their missile capacity.”
Trump also said the United States had rapidly expanded its drone and anti-drone capabilities during the conflict. “We have unbelievable drone technology, both for making them and also for knocking them down,” he said.
Asked whether Iran would be allowed to retain highly enriched uranium under any future agreement, Trump answered bluntly: “No, no, we get the highly enriched. We will get it.”
He added that the uranium stockpile would likely be destroyed after being secured by the United States. “We don’t need it. We don’t want it. We’ll probably destroy it after we get it.”
Trump repeatedly framed the Iran issue as more important than domestic political disputes or economic issues.
“I can think of nothing more important than the fact that we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
(IANS)
