US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Thursday he hoped tensions with Iran could be resolved through diplomacy, while warning that the alternative would be worse.
“I hope there’s a diplomatic resolution. I really do,” Witkoff said at a conference organized by the Israel-America Council in Florida.
He said Washington’s concerns centered on what he described as four main issues: nuclear enrichment, missile capabilities, stockpiles of enriched material and Iran’s regional proxies.
“There are four issues: nuclear enrichment, missiles – they have to cut back on their inventory – the actual material that they have, which is roughly 2,000 kilograms, which is enriched anywhere between 3.67% and 60, and the proxies, of course,” he said.
“If they want to come back to the League of Nations, we can solve those four problems diplomatically, and then that would be a great resolution,” he added. “And I think the alternative is a bad one.”
Witkoff also said the Trump administration had opened direct communications with Iranian officials amid concerns about possible mass executions.
“At his direction, we communicated with the Iranians yesterday,” he said. “One of the things we were concerned about were the killings that were rumored to be on the way – hangings, mass hangings – and that’s been shut down.”
He said Iran’s internal pressures could shape its next steps, citing what he described as power shortages, water scarcity and high inflation.