President Donald Trump told AFP on Tuesday that the United States had won a “total and complete victory” after agreeing a two-week ceasefire deal with Iran.
In a telephone call, Trump said he believed China had persuaded Iran to negotiate, and said Tehran’s enriched uranium would be “perfectly taken care of.”
The US leader appeared bullish on the truce with Iran, despite Tehran also casting it as a win for its side, and amid questions over exactly what both sides had agreed on.
The two sides agreed on the ceasefire barely an hour before Trump’s deadline to obliterate the Islamic republic was set to expire.
“Total and complete victory. 100 percent. No question about it,” Trump told AFP in the brief call when asked if he was claiming victory with the ceasefire.
With uncertainty over arrangements for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic in particular, Trump insisted there was a strong framework for a longer-term deal.
“We have a 15 point transaction, of which most of those things have been agreed on. We’ll see what happens. We’ll see if it gets there,” Trump said.
The Republican president had said in his earlier announcement on his Truth Social network that Iran had given a 10-point proposal which was “workable.”
Trump would not say whether he would go back to his original threats to lay waste to Iran’s civilian power plants and bridges if the deal fell apart.
“You’re going to have to see,” Trump told AFP.
The fate of Iran’s store of enriched uranium is another key question, after a war that the US president said was partially aimed at ensuring Iran could never get a nuclear weapon.
But Trump insisted that the nuclear material would be covered by any peace deal.
“That will be perfectly taken care of, or I wouldn’t have settled,” Trump said, without giving any specifics about what would happen to the uranium.
The ceasefire deal came after more than a month of destructive attacks by the United States and Israel, and followed mediation by Pakistan.
Trump said that he believed China had played a role in getting Iran to the negotiating table.
“I hear yes,” Trump said when asked if Beijing was involved in getting key ally Tehran to negotiate on a truce.
The US president is due to travel to Beijing in mid-May to meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, in a crucial summit between the two superpowers.
The trip was originally scheduled for early April but Trump postponed it, saying he had to stay in Washington to oversee the Iran war.
Beijing is a close partner of Tehran and the main buyer of Iranian oil, most of which passes through the strait.
But it also has strong economic ties to the Gulf countries and has repeatedly criticized attacks on them by Iran.
