• Trump says Iran wants deal as US forces move closer.
• Iran says defence programme is non-negotiable.
• US military build-up in ME adds to regional tensions.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump predicted on Friday that Iran would seek to negotiate a deal rather than face American military action, despite Tehran warning that its arsenal of missiles would never be up for discussion.

“I can say this, they do want to make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Asked if he had given Iran a deadline to enter talks on its nuclear and missile programmes, Trump said “yeah, I have,” but refused to say what it was.

“We have a large armada, flotilla, call it whatever you want, heading towards Iran right now,” Trump said, referring to a US naval carrier group in waters off Iran.

“Hopefully we’ll make a deal. If we do make a deal, that’s good. If we don’t make a deal, we’ll see what happens.”

Trump cited what he said was Iran’s decision to halt the executions of protesters – after a crackdown in which rights groups say more than 6,000 people were killed – as evidence to show Tehran was ready to negotiate.

Doing the right thing

Washington’s allies in the region are concerned that any US strike on Iran could cause instability and economic chaos.

One senior Gulf official in touch with the Trump administration said that the United States was closely guarded on what it has planned.

“We hope that whatever happens, it is going to lead to stability. That outcome could be reached by the Iranians doing the right thing, and we hope that happens,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s top security body – secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani – met Tehran’s ally Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

No details of their talks emerged, but Moscow has offered to mediate between Washington and Tehran.

Iran’s top diplomat said Friday that his country’s missile and defence capabilities would “never” be on the negotiating table.

Meantime, in a post on US social media company X, Larijani said the EU “certainly knows” that under a resolution adopted by Iran’s parliament, the armed forces of countries that took part in the recent EU move against the IRGC would themselves be considered terrorist organizations.

“The European Union certainly knows that, in accordance with a resolution of the Iranian parliament, the armies of countries that participated in the recent EU decision against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will be considered terrorist,” Larijani said.

He added that “the consequences of such an action will therefore fall on the European countries that took this step.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was “ready to begin negotiations if they take place on an equal footing.”

But, he emphasised, “Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities will never be subject to negotiation,” adding there were no plans to meet with US officials on resuming talks.

Ex-IAEA chief slams US threats

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei has condemned escalating US threats of military action against Iran.

In his post on Thursday on X, ElBaradei drew a direct parallel to the lead-up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which he described as “illegal and immoral” and built on falsehoods with devastating human and regional consequences.

“The continued unilateral threats of a military strike against #Iran in the absence of any clear and present danger and in violation of international law, brings to mind the same grim scene before the illegal and immoral #Iraq war with its lies and horrifying consequences. Human life and regional destruction don’t seem to matter. We never learn…,” he tweeted.

US news site Axios reported this week that Washington officials say any deal would have to include a cap on Iran’s arsenal of long-range missiles, the removal of enriched uranium from the country and a ban on independent enrichment.

Serhan Afacan, director of IRAM, the Ankara-based Centre for Iranian Studies, told AFP that trying to link a nuclear deal with other issues would likely “be impossible.”

“For now, the ballistic missile programme remains a red line, as it sits at the core of Iran’s defence architecture,” he said.

Reducing tensions

Iran has warned that it would respond instantly with missile strikes against US bases, ships and allies, notably Israel.

“We are not limiting the geography of confrontation to the sea alone and have prepared ourselves for broader and more advanced scenarios,” the head of Iran’s Defence Council, Ali Shamkhani, said Friday, according to the Tasnim news agency.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Istanbul with Araghchi, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Israel was pushing for the United States to attack Iran, and urged Washington to “not allow this to happen.”

Iran has blamed the United States and Israel for the protests that erupted in late December over economic grievances and peaked on January 8 and 9, accusing the two countries of fuelling a “terrorist operation” that turned peaceful demonstrations into “riots.”