Washington: US President Donald Trump has sent a striking warning to Iran of possible bombings and secondary tariffs if the Islamic Republic does not reach an agreement with the US over its nuclear programme. "If they don't make a deal, there will be bombing," Trump said in a phone interview with NBC News on Sunday. In Trump's first remarks since Iran rejected direct negotiations with Washington last week, he told NBC News that US and Iranian officials were talking, but did not elaborate. "It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before," the US President said. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday that the Islamic Republic rejected negotiations with the US over its fast-advancing nuclear programme, offering Tehran's first response to a letter Trump sent to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Trump also mentioned the possibility of reimposing economic pressure, similar to his past actions. "There's a chance that if they don't make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago," Trump told "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker. Iran sent a response through Oman to a letter from Trump urging Tehran to reach a new nuclear deal, saying its policy was to not engage in direct negotiations with the US while under its maximum pressure campaign and military threats, Tehran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi was quoted as saying on Thursday. Pezeshkian reiterated the policy on Sunday. In the NBC interview, Trump also threatened so-called secondary tariffs, which affect buyers of a country’s goods, on both Russia and Iran. He signed an executive order last week authorizing such tariffs on buyers of Venezuelan oil. During his first term, Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, a pact that imposed strict limitations on Tehran's contentious nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

In his first 2017-21 term, Trump withdrew the US from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed strict limits on Tehran's disputed nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump also reimposed sweeping US sanctions. Since then, the Islamic Republic has far surpassed the agreed limits in its escalating program of uranium enrichment. Tehran has so far rebuffed Trump's warning to make a deal or face military consequences. Western powers accuse Iran of having a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy program. Tehran says its nuclear program is wholly for civilian energy purposes.

(IANS)