Washington | The US will work with Iran to retrieve and destroy its highly enriched uranium if it is able to cut a deal with Tehran to end the three-month-old war between the countries, US President Donald Trump said.

Trump, in an interview to NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ programme, said that in the absence of an agreement, he will further degrade the Iranian military to the point that American forces can safely collect the fissile material on their own.

“If we make a deal that now we’re friendly, we’ll all go together. It’ll be our equipment. We’ll take it out and destroy it, whether it’s on-site or whether we take it off-site,” Trump said.

The US President said he was “very close” to signing the deal with Iran, but was pushing them to go further and commit to completely abandon their nuclear ambitions.

“Now, if we don’t make a deal, then we’re going to take them out militarily very harshly. And we’ll wait till we do that before we go, in which case we’ll have safety either way,” he said.

Trump asserted that no sanctions on Iran would be lifted or assets unfrozen upfront till the peace deal is reached.

"Yeah. If they behave, if they do a good job, we start talking. Yeah," Trump said when asked whether he would consider unfreezing Iranian assets later if not immediately.

Trump also said that he was not demanding that Lebanon be a part of a short-term deal with Tehran.

“They’ve conceded the fact that they will not have nuclear weapons. We had a clause in there that (they) will not develop nuclear weapons. And everybody was very happy with it except me,” Trump said, adding that he wanted an additional provision to ensure Iran can’t execute an end run around a deal.

“And I said, ‘Well, what happens if they, not develop, but they go out and purchase, they acquire? I want to put the word, ‘if they buy, purchase or acquire,’” he said.

“You know, you’ve got to have that in there, too, because that’s not developing. So, they don’t have the right to develop or purchase, acquire or buy,” Trump said.

Trump said he was looking to keep US troops deployed in the region until “completion”.

The US President said that he is finding Iran’s new leadership to be “more rational, very smart” and was open to speaking with Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamanei.

“I would if he’d like to,” Trump said, “but I have not spoken to him directly.”