US President Donald Trump issued a blunt threat to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian after Pezeshkian said Washington had reversed course and would have to recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium. Trump said Pezeshkian should “keep his mouth shut and calm down, or we’ll take over his country.”
The public clash began after Pezeshkian described the latest developments as an Iranian achievement. He said Trump’s positions had shifted by “180 degrees” from the past and that Iran would not give up its enrichment rights. “They will have to accept it too,” Pezeshkian said, casting the understandings with Washington as an American retreat.
Trump rejected that interpretation in an interview with Fox News. “This is not a deal with the Iranian regime, it is just an extension of the ceasefire,” he said, stressing that in his view Washington had not recognized Tehran’s nuclear rights. Instead, he portrayed the arrangement as a limited test period in which Iran must meet its commitments.
Trump also said he still held the leverage. “I hold the cards,” he said, adding that if the Iranians do not fulfill their obligations at the negotiating table, he has a 60-day framework available after which, in his words, “I will do whatever I want.”
