Trump: US, Iran to hold direct nuclear talks on Saturday 

President Trump said the U.S. will hold direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program, saying a meeting is set for Saturday. 

He made his remarks alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting that was arranged on short notice. 

“We're having direct talks with Iran, and they've started. It'll go on Saturday,” Trump said from the Oval Office. 

Trump said he’s focusing on diplomacy over threatening military action. Trump, in his first term, withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran that put verifiable limits on its nuclear program but that critics said did not completely eliminate the risk of its weapons program. 

Iran has accelerated its weapons programs, with U.S. officials warning it has knowledge on building a bomb and enough material to fuel numerous bombs, more than it had when it was in the previous nuclear deal, called the JCPOA. 

“We have a very big meeting, and we'll see what can happen,” Trump said.

“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious, and the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it,” he continued.

“So we're going to see if we can avoid it, but it's getting to be very dangerous territory. And hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran's best interests if they are successful, we hope, we hope that's going to happen.”

Netanyahu, who has raised the possibility of a military strike on Iran with the help of the U.S., said that diplomacy is preferable and called for a “Libya model” — referencing how the late dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi gave up his country’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for sanctions relief. 

While Trump has said it is unacceptable for Iran to attain a nuclear weapon, the president has also floated renewed ties with the Islamic republic, a state sponsor of terrorism that launched two direct attacks against Israel over the past few years. 

Trump has said he wants to see Iran join the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.