Trump says he is in 'no rush' to strike nuclear deal with Iran
"They would like to talk. I'm in no rush to talk because we obliterated their site," Mr Trump told reporters upon his arrival in Washington after a trip to Pittsburgh, referring to US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last month.
Iran said on Monday that it will not resume nuclear talks with the US if negotiations are conditional on halting its uranium enrichment activities, state news agency Irnareported.
Tehran and Washington held several rounds of negotiations aimed at reviving a nuclear deal, but those efforts were derailed after Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iran in June, triggering 12 days of war.
After a ceasefire was announced ending the war, Mr Trump signalled interest in returning to the negotiating table. However, Tehran has remained firm that it will not relinquish its right to the peaceful use of nuclear power.
Mr Trump is set to meet Qatar 's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Wednesday to discuss efforts to bring a nuclear agreement, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X. Qatar has previously mediated between the two sides.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK agreed during a phone call on Monday to set the end of August as the de facto deadline for reaching a nuclear deal with Iran, Axios reported, citing three sources.
The EU was particularly proud of the 2015 nuclear deal because it represented a strong symbol of multilateral diplomacy. It brought together great powers in the spirit of bolstering the cause of nuclear non-proliferation.
Besides exiting, the Trump administration reimposed heavy secondary sanctions on Iran, which effectively forced foreign companies to choose between investing in the US and Iranian markets.
European efforts to mitigate the impact of these US sanctions failed, thus undermining the key benefit of the deal for Iran: helping its battered economy.
It also weakened Tehran's faith in the value of Europe as a partner, as it revealed an inability to carve real independence from the US.
If no deal is reached by that deadline, the three European powers plan to trigger the "snapback" mechanism that automatically reimposes all UN Security Council sanctions lifted under the 2015 Iran deal, according to the Axios report.
October 18 is Termination Day for the 2015 nuclear agreement, which Mr Trump unilaterally pulled out of three years after it was signed.
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