Trump confirms high-level meeting with Iran: "We're dealing with them directly"

Donald Trump announced Monday that his administration has scheduled a high-level meeting with Iran for next Saturday. This meeting will be the first direct dialogue between the two countries since Washington pulled out of the nuclear deal in 2018.

"We have a very big meeting on Saturday, and we're dealing with them directly," the president declared from the Oval Office, accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While he did not offer details on the location or specific terms of the negotiations, he emphasized that the approach would be "different" and "stronger" than that of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement from which the United States withdrew six years ago.

Trump stressed the importance of reaching an agreement that would prevent further escalation in the region. "We’ll see what can happen. I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious," he said, in apparent reference to his recent threat to bomb Iran if the regime did not agree to curb its nuclear program.

Iran remains silent on meeting

direct talks with the United States to negotiate its nuclear program. So far, Tehran has not confirmed Saturday's meeting, and the Iranian mission to the United Nations has not responded to requests for comment.

Israel backs diplomatic track, but maintains firm stance

While it has not been confirmed whether Israel or other nations will participate in the talks, Netanyahu made clear that his country is aligned with Washington in the goal of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

"We're both united in the goal that Iran does not ever get nuclear weapons, that it can be done diplomatically in a full way, the way it was done in Libya," Netanyahu said. "But whatever happens, we have to make sure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons."