Trump reveals his conditions for a sit-down with Iran's supreme leader: 'I'd be okay with that'

WASHINGTON, DC: Amid the ongoing negotiations to end hostilities between the US and Iran, President Donald Trump on Thursday, June 4, expressed his desire to meet the Supreme Leader of Iran Mojtaba Khamenei.

This comes as Trump said that only the United States and China can retrieve enriched uranium from Iran's deeply buried nuclear facilities, while insisting that recent US military strikes caused severe damage to the sites.

Trump says he would meet Mojtaba Khamenei respectfully

President Trump said that he would want to meet the Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, if the ongoing negotiation between Washington and Tehran to permanently stop the conflict materializes into a deal.

He said he would approach the meeting with respect and would be honored to meet the Supreme Leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei, who, after the catastrophic attack by the joint military of the US and Israel on February 28, was reported to be severely injured, has started to become more involved in the peace talks.

Asked by Fox News' senior White House Correspondent Peter Doocy about meeting the Iranian leader in the United States, Trump said, "I'd be honored to meet him."

“I'd like to see if we make a deal. But if we make a deal, it's possible that I would meet him. I'd be okay with that,” he added before stating that if they did meet, he would be:

“Respectful.”

“Well, I would say I'm not his favorite person,” Trump added. “But with that being said, he's probably a professional in some circles.”

Only US and China can move enriched uranium

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump said that only the US and China can recover the enriched uranium from the buried nuclear facilities.

Trump also pushed back against reports questioning the effectiveness of the attacks and maintained that the targeted facilities were left in ruins.

“We attacked their nuclear sites, and they were obliterated,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

“It turned out that, you know, CNN was wrong. They said, ‘Well, maybe they weren’t hit that hard’. They were hit so hard, nobody knows if you could even get it out,” he added.

Trump went on to argue that only the US and China have the equipment capable of reaching it. “But the only ones that have the capability of getting it out are us and China,” Trump said.

“We’re the only ones with that kind of equipment that’s powerful enough to go down that deep into a mountain, but that mountain crushed it,” he added. “That mountain literally collapsed on top of it.”

Referring to assessments by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, he said the agency agreed.

“And now the atomic energy, as you know, has backed us up on that. They think it’s a very, very hard thing to get to, but we’ll get it anyway. But we’re the only ones — and China, I believe, does, too — that have the capability,” he said.