Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special representative for the Middle East, has said that the US president is seeking to end an armed conflict with Iran by building trust with Tehran.
In an interview with online news host Tucker Carlson published on X, Witkoff said that Trump’s recent letter to the Iranian government was not intended as a threat. The United States and Iran have long had a feud, with new Israeli strikes on targets in Gaza and threats to a cargo ship by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels posing a new challenge to relations.
On March 7, Trump wrote a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urging him to resume talks on Iran’s nuclear program. He also warned of possible military action. “The Americans should know that threats against Iran will get them nowhere,” Khamenei said in a televised address on Friday.
Defending Trump’s access, Witkoff told Carlson, “Trump has the upper hand in the military and it would be natural for the Iranians to press for a diplomatic solution, but he’s doing that,” he said of the letter. “In the letter, President Trump said, ‘I’m a president of peace. This is what I want. There’s no reason for us to do this militarily. We have to negotiate,'” Witkoff said.
“We need to create a verification program so that no one is worried about the weaponization of your nuclear material because that is not a very good option,” he said. “US negotiations with Iran are ongoing, with multiple countries and multiple channels, or ‘indirect channels,’” Witkoff said.
“Iran has an opportunity to come clean on everything,” he said. “It will connect them to the world community, which has been estranged, and make them a great nation once again. Trump wants to build trust with the Iranians.”
