Financial Times:

By Andrew England in London and Bita Ghaffari in Tehran and Steff Chávez in Washington

Donald Trump said the US had “very good” talks with Iran and that negotiations would continue next week but warned that the consequences for Tehran would be “very steep” if they did not reach a deal.

The US president said it “looks like they want to make a deal very badly”, adding that Iran was “willing to do much more than they would have a year and a half ago, or even a year ago”.

Trump’s comments late on Friday came hours after his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held indirect talks with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman.

Araghchi had also said the talks, the first since the US briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June, had started well.

The discussions are taking place as Trump weighs military options against Iran in the wake of the Islamic regime’s crackdown on mass protests in which thousands of people were killed.

He has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group, fighter jets and air defences to the region and warned Tehran that time was “running out”, raising fears that another war could erupt in the Middle East.

Speaking on Air Force One on Friday, Trump said a deal that only covered Iran’s nuclear programme could be “acceptable”, hinting at a possible shift in Washington’s position.

“The one thing and right up front, no nuclear weapons,” Trump said.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said this week that talks with Iran should address Tehran’s muscular ballistic missile programme and its support for regional militant groups. But Iran has repeatedly said the negotiations should focus on the nuclear issue — a condition repeated by Araghchi on Friday — and that its missile arsenal was not up for negotiation.

After the US bombed Iran’s main nuclear facilities in June, Trump said Tehran’s nuclear programme was “obliterated”.

But this week he claimed the Islamic republic was “thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country”. There are also concerns about the fate of Iran’s stockpile of 408kg of highly enriched uranium.

Iran insists its programme is for civilian purposes even though it is enriching uranium at a purity that is close to weapons-grade levels.

Trump said on Friday night that while the US had “to get in position” militarily, he was in “no rush” to use the assets Washington has deployed to the region.

“We have plenty of time. If you remember Venezuela, we waited around for a while, and we’re in no rush.”

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