US President Donald Trump threatened by saying the world will find out “over the next, probably, 10 days” whether the US will reach a deal with Iran or take military action. At the first meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington DC, Trump said of negotiations with the Islamic Republic about its nuclear program: “We have to make it a meaningful deal, otherwise bad things happen.” In recent days, the US has surged military forces to the Middle East, while progress was reported at talks between American and Iranian negotiators in Switzerland. The Iranian government has told the UN Secretary-General that it will regard US bases in the region as legitimate targets if used in any military aggression against Iran. Tehran’s UN mission said in a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres that Trump’s rhetoric intimated a real risk of an attack, but it said Iran did not want a war. Democratic lawmakers, and some Republican’s, have voiced opposition to any potential military action in Iran without congressional approval. In his remarks, Trump noted that Special Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also Trump’s son-in-law, had “some very good meetings” with Iran. “It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran,” he said. “Otherwise bad things happen.”
