Trump: 60 days not a hard deadline on Iran negotiations

President Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the 60-day timeline to negotiate with Iran once the memorandum of understanding is formally signed is not a hard deadline to reach a final agreement with Tehran.

“No, I don’t. [It] could take longer,” Trump said in Paris when asked if 60 days marked a final deadline.

“I don’t view it as hard,” he continued. “Just as long as they’re behaving, I really don’t care that much.

Trump’s comments come after senior administration officials shared the full text of the memorandum with reporters. According to the document, the U.S. and Iran committed “to negotiating and achieving the final deal in a maximum 60 days extended with mutual consent.”

The president appeared to downplay the preliminary agreement earlier on Wednesday, saying it was not final.

“No, it’s not final. It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head,” he said.

“If they don’t behave, we’ll go back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head,” he continued, adding “they’ve misbehaved for 47 years.”

Under the agreement, Iran would commit to never building a nuclear bomb — as it did under the Obama-era nuclear deal that Trump pulled out of — but the deal punts on specific commitments regarding Tehran’s nuclear program, such as handing over its stockpile of enriched uranium.

Trump told reporters Wednesday he believed obtaining the nuclear dust is “much less important than not having a nuclear weapon.”

“Because it’s very hard to get it. I don’t think anybody could get at. We could get at it with great work and a lot of time,” he said.