President Donald Trump on Thursday delivered a characteristically ambiguous message on Iran, pairing talk of overwhelming military force with renewed signals that he may still favor a negotiated deal.
“I can’t tell you what I’m going to do right now,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about Iran. “We have a tremendous force going in there, just like we did in Venezuela — even bigger.”
Still, he stressed that the administration was already in contact with Tehran.
“Right now, we’re talking to them. We’re talking to Iran,” he said. “If we could work something out, that’d be great. And if we can’t, probably bad things would happen.”
The remarks underscored a familiar dual-track approach: escalating deterrence while keeping the door open to diplomacy.
That uncertainty comes as US and Iranian officials prepare for what could be their first face-to-face engagement in the current crisis, with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi set to meet in Istanbul on Friday.
The meeting, if it goes ahead as expected, would mark a significant step after weeks of indirect messaging, military posturing and sharply escalatory rhetoric.
Conflicting reports
Various reports emerged on Friday about the details and potential format of the planned negotiations.
Reuters cited an unnamed Iranian official as saying Tehran was “ready to show flexibility on uranium enrichment,” including the possible transfer of 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and acceptance of zero enrichment under a consortium arrangement.
The report was swiftly denied by Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who stressed that any transfer of enriched uranium abroad was off the table.
“We are prepared for a possible war,” Shamkhani said in an interview with Hezbollah-affiliated broadcaster Al Mayadeen. “If the US attacks, we will certainly strike Israel.”
Separately, the Financial Times cited unnamed diplomats as saying the initial talks in Turkey are expected to focus primarily on Iran’s nuclear program, rather than its missile arsenal or support for regional militant groups.
