US President Donald Trump and his state secretary, Mike Pompeo, speak of “progress” and “deal” with Iran, claiming that Washington is not seeking “regime change.”

Speaking to cabinet members in Washington Tuesday, Trump also implied that Tehran is after building a nuclear bomb.

“They can't have a nuclear weapon. We want to help them. We'll be good to them. We'll work with them. We will help them in any way we can,” Trump claimed. “But, they can't have a nuclear weapon. We're not looking, by the way, for regime change because some people say we're looking for regime change.”

He further accused former President Barack Obama of seeking "regime change" in dealing with Iran.

“We're not looking for regime change. I've watched President Obama and many other presidents try. That doesn't work out too well. We're not looking for that at all,” the US president claimed.”They can't have a nuclear weapon. They can't be testing ballistic missiles which right now under that agreement, if they had the agreement, which we are out of, they'd be able to do. They can't do that."

Pompeo: Iran wants to negotiate missile program

Pompeo later claimed that Iran is seeking to negotiate about its missile program, a claim dismissed by Tehran.

“The Iranian regime is struggling to figure out what they're going to do with their economy because we've been terribly effective and the result is ... frankly I think it was yesterday, maybe the day before, for the first time the Iranians have said that they're prepared to negotiate about their missile program,” claimed the war hawk. “So, we will have this opportunity, I hope, if we continue to execute our strategy appropriately, we'll have this opportunity to negotiate a deal that will actually prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon in the same way that the previous agreement had no chance of actually doing."

🇮🇷 پاسخ #دکتر_ظریف به مجری بی بی سی دقیق، هوشمندانه و به قول اهل فن " تعلیق به محال" بود. هم توپ را در زمین آمریکا انداخت و هم بجای موضع تدافعی، موضوع فروش تسلیحات آمریکا به کشورهای منطقه را به چالش کشید. موضع ایران و دکتر ظریف درباره توانمندی های موشکی کشور مشخص است. pic.twitter.com/iW43DSdrjt — S.A MOUSAVI (@SAMOUSAVI9) July 16, 2019

Tehran has rejected characterization of Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s comments to NBC News as meaning that it seeks to negotiate its missile program.

“If the US wants to talk about missiles , it should stop selling weapons including missiles to regional states,” Zarif said.

Tehran has time and again asserted that its defense missile program is non-negotiable.

The Trump administration’s apparent tendency to negotiate with the Islamic Republic comes after it quit the internationally backed nuclear deal and re-imposed illegal sanctions on Iran, which has responded by reducing its commitments under the agreement.