WASHINGTON, March 22, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said the US president was trying to head off armed conflict with Iran by building trust with Tehran in remarks broadcast Friday.

In an interview with online news anchor Tucker Carlson published on X, Witkoff said Trump's recent letter to the Islamist government had not been intended as a threat. 

The United States and Iran are longtime foes and relations are at a new low after new Israeli strikes against targets in Gaza and threats to shipping from Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels. 

On March 7, Trump said he had written to Iran's supreme leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urging a resumption of negotiations about the Iranian nuclear programme.

He also warned of potential military action and Khamenei, in a televised speech on Friday said: "The Americans should know threats will get them nowhere when confronting Iran."

But Witkoff, defending Trump's outreach, told Carlson that Trump has the military upper hand and it would be more natural for the Iranians to push for a diplomatic solution.

"Instead, it's him doing that," he said of the letter.

"It roughly said: 'I'm a president of peace. That's what I want. There's no reason for us to do this militarily. We should talk,'" Witkoff said. 

"We should create a verification program so that nobody worries about weaponization of your nuclear material... because the alternative is not a very good alternative."

Witkoff said that US discussions with Iran continue through "back channels, through multiple countries and multiple conduits."

Trump, he said, is "open to an opportunity to clean it all up with Iran, where they come back to the world and be a great nation once again... He wants to build trust with them."