By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said he would not be much more patient with Iran as he urged Tehran to reach a deal with Washington while also suggesting that the quest to retrieve Iran's enriched uranium was more about perception than about security.
"I am not going to be much more patient," Trump said in an interview aired on Thursday night on Fox News' "Hannity" program. "They should make a deal."
When asked in the interview about the necessity to retrieve
enriched uranium from Iran, Trump suggested the quest was not necessary except for public relations purposes.
"I don't think it's necessary except from a public relations standpoint," Trump said in the interview.
"I just feel better if I got it, actually. But it's, I think, it's more for public relations than it is for anything else."
The U.S., one of nine countries in the world recognized as having nuclear weapons, insists that Iran should move its highly enriched uranium stockpile abroad and renounce domestic enrichment.
Tehran, which does not have nuclear weapons, denies seeking them but says it has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iranian parliamentary spokesman Ebrahim Rezaei said on Tuesday that the country could enrich uranium up to 90% purity, a level considered weapons-grade, if Iran was attacked again.
The more than five-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran remains fragile, with neither side appearing close to a deal to end the war that is also unpopular in the United States.
The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Tehran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host U.S. bases. U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
Human rights groups have widely criticised Trump for his rhetoric during the war, including when he threatened to attack civilian infrastructure and destroy Iran's entire civilization, and when he said the U.S. Navy was acting "like pirates" to carry out a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Bhargav Acharya in Washington; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Kate Mayberry)
