(A7) US President Donald Trump warned on Friday that “bad things” would happen to Iran if it does not agree to a deal on its nuclear program.

“Iran is very high on my list of things to watch, and as you probably know, I sent them a letter just recently, and I said, ‘You’re going to have to make a decision one way or the other,’” Trump said at the White House.

“And we’re going to either have to talk and talk it out, or very bad things are going to happen to Iran, and I don’t want that to happen,” he added.

“My big preference, and I don’t say this through strength or weakness, is we work it out with Iran. But if we don’t work it out, bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran,” stressed the President.

Axios reported last week that Trump’s letter to Iran included a two-month deadline for the Islamic Republic to reach an agreement or face harsher sanctions as part of Washington’s renewed “maximum pressure” campaign.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, swiftly dismissed the US offer, calling it “a deception” and arguing that engaging in talks with the Trump administration would “tighten the knot of sanctions and increase pressure on Iran.”

Despite Khamenei’s rejection of the offer, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday that Iran has sent a response to Trump’s letter via Oman.

“Our policy is still to not engage in direct negotiations while under maximum pressure and military threats, however, as it was the case in the past, indirect negotiations can continue,” Araqchi said, according to the IRNA news agency.

(Israel National News’ North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)