Trump says Iran framework deal could be signed Sunday, vows to destroy uranium later

US President Donald Trump said on Saturday evening that the framework agreement with Iran is scheduled to be signed on Sunday. In a lengthy post, he contrasted his planned deal with Barack Obama’s JCPOA, calling the earlier accord an easy path to nuclear weapons and saying his own agreement would be the opposite, a “wall to zero nuclear weapons.”

Trump wrote that Iran no longer wants nuclear weapons and will not obtain them “through purchase, development or any other form” of acquisition. He added that once the deal is signed, the Strait of Hormuz will be “open to everyone,” and said the United States now has a much different and better relationship with Iran than previous administrations did.

The president also criticized Obama’s approach, saying “hundreds of billions of dollars” had been paid to Tehran, including “1.7 billion dollars in cold, hard cash,” while under his own deal no money will change hands. He said that “when the time is right, when everything is calm,” the US will enter and take the nuclear dust, which he described as buried deep under “granite mountains,” using B-2 bombers and their “genius pilots,” and dilute and destroy it, either in Iran or in the United States.

Trump said he expects to work with Iran and the wider Middle East “deep into the future,” adding that he hopes the process will move quickly, easily and smoothly. If not, he warned that the United States has “the ultimate alternative,” which he said he hopes will never need to be used again.