US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “should be very worried” in the wake of reports that suggested that planned nuclear talks set for the end of the week were unravelling.

But the reported concerns over a potential breakdown of negotiations due to Iran’s insistence that the discussions focus on its nuclear program appeared to dissipate later in the day, with the parties confirming that talks initially scheduled to be held in Turkey would be moved to Oman’s capital of Muscat.

Iran has said it will not make concessions on its formidable ballistic missile program — one of the biggest in the Middle East — calling that a red line in negotiations.

Asked by NBC News amid concern the diplomatic efforts were falling apart, if Khamenei should be worried, Trump responded, “He should be very worried.”

“They’re negotiating with us,” Trump added.

The reporter then said Iranian protesters against the regime feel betrayed by Trump, who had expressed his support for them and urged them to take to the streets, where thousands were reportedly killed in a brutal crackdown by the Islamic Republic. Trump has since boasted of having stopped the purportedly planned executions of another 800 protesters.

“We do have their back,” Trump said of the protesters. “That country is a mess right now because of us. We went in, [and] we wiped out their nuclear [program],” Trump added in reference to US strikes on several Iranian nuclear sites last year during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

In light of again claiming that Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated, the US president was then pressed on what nuclear talks with Iran will address if that is the case.

Trump clarified that Iran has since tried rebuilding its program at other sites, which he said will lead to further US strikes.

Trump has avoided acknowledging that there were some nuclear facilities not targeted in the US strikes and that the location of already-enriched uranium stockpiles is unknown — two points that undercut his claim that the nuclear program was completely destroyed.

The talks were thrown into doubt earlier after Tehran backed out of understandings over the location and format of the negotiations, two senior American officials told the Axios news site.

US officials said Turkey had brokered a framework for talks in Istanbul, including a direct US-Iran track focused on Tehran’s nuclear program and a broader regional........

© The Times of Israel