Trump teases ‘very big meeting’ with Iran on Saturday after Netanyahu talks

WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Monday that his administration would convene direct nuclear talks with Iran later this week — saying that he hopes for “a deal” to avoid “the obvious” military alternative.

“We’re having direct talks with Iran,” Trump said in the Oval Office while hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who left the White House holding a paperback copy of Trump’s 1987 book “The Art of the Deal.”

“On Saturday we have a very big meeting … doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious.”

Trump said the meeting will be convened at “almost the highest level,” but declined to identify participants or say where it would occur — after escalating sanctions on Tehran and threatening US strikes.

The president added that the US is “dealing with them directly, and maybe a deal’s going to be made — that would be great. It would be really great for Iran, I can tell you that.”

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran,” Trump added, “I think Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say, in great danger, because they can’t have a nuclear weapon.

“You know, it’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That’s all there is…. And if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran.”

Trump in February ordered strict application of economic sanctions against Iran — after the Biden administration ended his “maximum pressure” campaign and rebuffed bipartisan demands for enforcing sanctions against Iran’s oil exports.

At the time, the president said that he had ordered Iran to be “obliterated” if the country’s government assassinated him. 

The American leader engaged in further saber-rattling last month after ordering airstrikes on Tehran-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen, who have fired upon international shipping in the Red Sea.

“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire,” Trump wrote on social media.

Iran allegedly sought to kill Trump and various officials who served in his first administration as payback for the US assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

In his first term, Trump repudiated former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, saying it did too little to prevent the theocratic regime from building a nuclear weapon, and hailed the action as drying up funds to aid terrorist groups and militant movements across the Middle East.

US-owned Gaza will be ‘the freedom zone’

Trump also revisited his plans for the US to take over and rebuild the Gaza Strip — after moving the Palestinian territory’s 2 million people to other countries.

“If you take the people, the Palestinians, and move them around to different countries — and you have plenty of countries that will do that, and you really have a freedom zone. You call it the freedom zone,” Trump mused.

“I don’t understand why Israel ever gave it up. Israel owned it … They took oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace. How did that work out? Not good.”

The president said “having a peace force like the US there, controlling and owning the Gaza Strip, would be a good thing.”

Trump initially floated a US-run reconstruction of Gaza on Feb. 4 during a prior visit by Netanyahu, saying it would be regarded as “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Netanyahu, who used the visit to plead with Trump to scrap a looming 17% tariff on his nation, has vaguely praised the concept, despite a cool reception from Arab neighbors who would have to take in the war-torn enclave’s people.

The Israeli head of government said in the Oval Office Monday that Gazans should be given the option to voluntarily move abroad.”What is wrong with giving people a choice?” Netanyahu said. “I think this is the right thing to do … We’re working on it. I hope we’ll have good news for you.”