ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - US President Donald Trump said Thursday that they were close to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran, ruling out the possibility of striking Tehran’s enrichment sites.

“We are not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran," Trump said during a meeting with business leaders in Doha. "I think we are getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this.”

Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday, embarking on a regional tour that also included a visit to Qatar. Later in the day, he will wrap up his visit with a final stop in the UAE.

Tehran and Washington have been negotiating a solution to Iran’s nuclear program and have held four indirect meetings, with Oman acting as a mediator. The latest meeting was held on Sunday. The talks have progressed positively thus far, according to both sides’ accounts of the discussions.

Speaking at the US-Saudi Investment Forum 2025 in Riyadh on Tuesday, Trump reiterated his country’s unwavering position that a nuclear-armed Iran constitutes a red line for Washington, noting that they will “take all action required to stop the [Iranian] regime from ever having a nuclear weapon.”

“Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday reacted to Trump’s inflammatory comments in Riyadh, stating that Tehran would not “bow down to any bully.”

Trump "thinks he can come here, chant slogans, and scare us. For us, martyrdom is far sweeter than dying in bed. You came to frighten us? We will not bow to any bully,” Pezeshkian said on Iranian state TV.

Washington and Western powers have sought robust assurances that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, while Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and that it has no plans to develop nuclear weapons. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has stressed that the issue of nuclear enrichment is “non-negotiable” for Iran.

Trump, during his first term in 2018, walked away from a landmark nuclear deal with Iran, which was introduced three years earlier in 2015 by his predecessor Barack Obama. Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal provided sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.