Trump on talks with Tehran in Doha: Results will come very soon, Iran cannot have nuclear weapons

Donald Trump has expressed optimism about the negotiations underway with Iran, saying the contacts are going “very well” and referring to the meetings being held in Doha.

Speaking to reporters from Joint Base Andrews, the US president said Tehran’s stance has undergone a noticeable change.

“Iran has made a lot of progress,” Trump said, adding that “we hit them very hard last week.”

He also repeated Washington’s hard line on Iran’s nuclear program, stressing that “the issue is very simple: Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon.”

On the other side, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said the negotiations and agreements reached recently have begun to produce concrete effects on the economy.

According to the semi-official Fars news agency, Pezeshkian said that some of the financial and foreign exchange restrictions that had weighed on the Iranian economy have now been eased. He stressed that the continuation of oil exports, the removal of some economic and monetary barriers, as well as the opening of new opportunities for economic cooperation, constitute the first results of the latest agreements concluded by Tehran.

These statements by the two leaders come at a time when indirect talks between the US and Iran are continuing in Doha, under the mediation of Qatar and Pakistan.

Arab and international media report that progress is being made in these contacts, while sources cited by them say that a preliminary agreement has been reached to release $3 billion for Tehran.

Sources from Al Arabiya and Al Hadath say the parties initially agreed on the way this amount would be distributed, while discussions are continuing over the status of the Strait of Hormuz, based on a new proposal presented by Oman. According to the same sources, the delegations will return to their countries for further consultations before the next round of contacts.

The technical talks are being held indirectly, with Qatar and Pakistan acting as mediators. The American delegation is communicating with the Qatari mediator, while the Iranian delegation is holding meetings with the Pakistani mediator, in an effort to overcome disagreements and move forward with the implementation of the memorandum of understanding agreed upon to end the conflict in the Middle East.

A diplomatic source familiar with the negotiations said that high-level negotiators and specialized technical teams are taking part in the talks. Reuters reported that the US delegation of Kushner and Witkoff had prepared the ground during yesterday’s meeting with the prime minister of Qatar, but without directly taking part in the technical contacts held today.