National security adviser Mike Waltz said on Sunday that all options were “on the table” to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In an interview with ABC News “This Week,” anchor Martha Radaz asked the president's top advisor to elaborate on President Trump's warning to Iran a week ago.
“So, what is he talking about? Are he talking about possible strikes against nuclear facilities by Israel, will it join the US?” asked Radazs.
“Well, what the president has… I've said over and over, Iran cannot have nuclear weapons,” Waltz said.
“Make sure all the options are on the table and they don't. And that's all aspects of Iran's program. It's missiles, weaponization, enrichment. They can hand it over and give up on it in a verifiable way. Or they can face another set of consequences,” he continued.
“But in any case, we cannot have a world with Ayatollah with a finger on the nuclear button,” he added. “From a nuclear proliferation perspective, we cannot have a situation that leads to an arms race in the Middle East, and President Trump has made some sort of decision.”
In 2018, Trump withdrew from Iran's nuclear deal mediated during the former presidential Obama administration and ordered a US-led strike against Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.
Trump is showing he is about to resume negotiations on a fresh nuclear deal with Tehran. Earlier this month, he wrote to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying, “If we have to go militarily, it will be awful.”
Iran's supreme leader subsequently refused the push, claiming it was just a way for Washington to impose new demands and limit Tehran's military capabilities.
“Some forced governments have insisted on negotiations. Such negotiations are not intended to resolve the issue. Their purpose is to take control of them and impose what they want,” the Iranian supreme leader said.statement last week. “For the forced government, negotiations are a way to impose new demands. Iran will definitely not meet these new demands.”
The US and Israel have previously said that Iran should not be able to obtain nuclear weapons. Tehran has been working to enrich uranium to levels close to nuclear weapons capabilities.
Iran says the program is being developed for peaceful purposes, but some of its officialsI threatenedIf the country is “threatened”, it develops an atomic bomb.
