US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he believes there is a "good chance" of making a deal with Iran on Monday, ahead of his deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face heavy bombing.
"I think there is a good chance tomorrow, they are negotiating now," the president told a Fox News journalist.
"If they don't make a deal and fast, I'm considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil," he added.
In the same interview, Trump said he had given Iranian negotiators "immunity from death" — and said they had conceded that Tehran would not move ahead with the development of nuclear weapons.
"The big thing is they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. They're not even negotiating that point, it's so easy," he said. "That's already been conceded. Most of the points are conceded."
In an interview with ABC News, Trump said the conflict should end in "days, not weeks," but warned that without some kind of agreement with Tehran, there was "very little" that would be considered off-limits in terms of US action.
Trump told Fox News that the United States had tried to send weapons to Iranian protesters opposing the cleric-run government by way of Kurdish intermediaries.
Demonstrations erupted in December in Iran over the high cost of living — a product of punishing sanctions on Tehran.
Those rallies ultimately escalated into anti-government protests that were squashed with deadly force. "We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them," Trump said. "And I think the Kurds took the guns."
Late last month, a top official in Iraqi Kurdistan said in an interview with AFP that Washington had not armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups exiled in the autonomous region.
"We have not seen any attempts by the United States, any branch of the United States, to arm Iranian opposition groups in Kurdistan," said the deputy prime minister of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, Qubad Talabani.
Agence France-Presse