30 April 2018•Update: 01 May 2018
By Safvan Allahverdi
WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump on Monday said he would be open to negotiating a new nuclear agreement with Iran, ahead of his decision on whether to pull out from the deal on May 12.
"You know in seven years, the deal will have expired and Iran is free to go ahead and create nuclear weapons. That is not acceptable," Trump told reporters at a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
"This does not mean that we will not negotiate a real agreement. This is an agreement that wasn't approved by too many people," he added.
During his remarks, Trump also acknowledged expectations that he will pull out of the accord by May 12 -- a deadline he has set upon Britain, France and Germany to come up with “substantial” fixes to some of the agreement’s most controversial provisions.
Trump has repeatedly called the pact one of the worst-negotiated agreements he has ever seen, and has threatened to pull out of it unless Washington and its European allies strike a side deal with conditions largely unrelated to the original agreement spanning Iran's regional activities and its ballistic missile program.
Asked if his decision to pull out of the Iran deal would send the wrong message to North Korea, Trump said on the contrary it would send the right message.
Echoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he also claimed that Iran would continue pursuing its nuclear program once the current deal expires.
Netanyahu on Monday accused Iran of continually expanding the range of its nuclear-capable missiles, violating its landmark deal to curb its nuclear program.
In a statement, Netanyahu claimed Israeli intelligence services had obtained 55,000 pages of Iranian documents revealing how Tehran allegedly lied to the world after signing the deal.
Trump: Korea meeting should be at border
On his planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, Trump said it should be held at the Peace House -- a venue for peace talks on the border of North and South Korea -- instead of other countries.
Kim has agreed to meet for de-nuclearization talks, South Korea's national security advisor said last week.
The time and place of the talks has yet to be determined, the White House said, stressing "all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain." If the meeting does take place, it would mark the first sit-down between a serving U.S. president and a Korean leader.
