Why did Netanyahu visit Trump for a second time this year?
US President Donald Trump has hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time since returning to office in January.
Iran and Gaza were the main topics discussed. Why did the meeting take place, and what does it signal?
Presenter: Dareen Abughaida
Guests:
H A Hellyer – senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute
Trita Parsi – executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Daniel Levy – president of the US/Middle East Project (USMEP)
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Al Jazeera
40 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
Iran warns US of consequences after strikes, says Trump betrayed his voters
Iran says the United States will be 'solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences' of its attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, adding that US President Donald Trump has 'betrayed' American voters by submitting to Israel's wishes. During an address to a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul on Sunday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US crossed 'a very big red line' by attacking Iran's three nuclear facilities. Speaking just hours after Trump announced that US warplanes had 'obliterated' the nuclear sites, Araghchi condemned the strikes and called on the United Nations Security Council to act. 'It is an outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law,' he said, adding that the 'warmongering and lawless' US administration will be 'solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implications of its act of aggression'. 'The US military attack on the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of a UN member state carried out in collusion with the genocidal Israeli regime has once again revealed the extent of the United States' hostility towards the peace-seeking people of Iran. We will never compromise on their independence and sovereignty,' he said. 'The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to defend Iran's territory, sovereignty, and people by all means necessary against not just US military aggression, but also the reckless and unlawful actions of the Israeli regime.' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who escalated the Middle East conflict by launching strikes on Iran on June 13, praised Trump's 'bold decision' to hit Iran's nuclear sites, and said Israel and the US acted in 'full coordination'. After the strikes, Trump said Iran 'must now agree to end this war' and that under no circumstances could Iran possess a nuclear weapon. But Araghchi said any demand to return to negotiations on the country's nuclear programme was 'irrelevant'. The US and Iran were engaged in nuclear talks before Israel launched a surprise strike on Iran – publicly backed by the US – earlier this month. Iran denies its uranium enrichment programme is for anything other than civilian purposes, rejecting Israeli allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has pledged to continue the attacks for 'as many days as it takes' to stop Iran from developing a 'nuclear threat'. 'The world must not forget that it was the United States which – in the midst of a process to forge a diplomatic outcome – betrayed diplomacy by supporting the genocidal Israeli regime's launch of an illegal war of aggression on the Iranian nation,' Araghchi said. 'So we were in diplomacy, but we were attacked. They gave a green light to Israelis, if not instructed them, to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. They have proved that they are not men of diplomacy, and they only understand the language of threat and force.' US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday said he still hopes Iran will return to the negotiating table. 'I can only confirm that there are both public and private messages being delivered to the Iranians in multiple channels, giving them every opportunity to come to the table,' he told reporters. Trump also 'betrayed' US voters Araghchi also accused Trump of betraying not only Iran, but his own supporters as well. He said Trump was elected on a platform of putting an end to 'America's costly involvement in 'forever wars''. 'He has betrayed not only Iran by abusing our commitment to diplomacy, but also deceived his own voters by submitting to the wishes of a wanted war criminal who has grown accustomed to exploiting the lives and wealth of American citizens to further the Israeli regime's objectives,' said Araghchi, referring to Netanyahu. Iran says more than 400 people have been killed and at least 3,056 others wounded since Israel launched its attacks on June 13. In Israel, at least 24 people have been killed in Iranian strikes. Araghchi said he would head to Moscow later on Sunday and hold 'serious consultations' with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday morning in the wake of the unprecedented US strikes. 'Russia is a friend of Iran and we enjoy a strategic partnership,' he said in Istanbul. 'We always consult with each other and coordinate our positions.' Meanwhile, Iran's delegation to the UN also formally called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Sunday to discuss the US strikes. In a letter submitted to the council carried by Fars News Agency, the Iranian delegation urged 'immediate action and the adoption of necessary measures under the framework of the United Nations Charter'. 'Silence in the face of such blatant aggression will plunge the world into an unprecedented level of danger and chaos,' Araghchi said in Istanbul. 'Humanity has come too far as a species to allow a lawless bully to take us back to the law of the jungle.'
Qatar Tribune
an hour ago
- Qatar Tribune
US strikes Iran's nuclear sites
WASHINGTON: The United States struck three sites in Iran early Sunday, inserting itself into Israel's war aimed at destroying the country's nuclear program in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe despite fears of a wider regional conflict. Addressing the nation from the White House, President Donald Trump asserted that Iran's key nuclear sites were 'completely and fully obliterated.' There was no independent damage assessment. It was not clear whether the US would continue attacking Iran alongside its ally Israel, which has been engaged in a nine-day war with Iran. Trump acted without congressional authorization, and he warned that there would be additional strikes if Tehran retaliated against US forces. 'There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran,' he said. Iran's top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, warned in a post on X that the US attacks 'will have everlasting consequences' and that Tehran 'reserves all options' to retaliate. Iran's ambassador to the United Nations called for an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss what he described as the US's 'heinous attacks and illegal use of force' against Iran. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said that the UN's most powerful body must 'take all necessary measures' to hold the US accountable under international law and the UN charter. The UN nuclear watchdog said later that there has been 'no increase in off-site radiation levels' at the locations that the US hit. The International Atomic Energy Agency sent the message via the social platform X. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but it insisted that its work will not be stopped. Iran said there were no signs of radioactive contamination at the three locations and no danger to nearby residents. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and US intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Trump and Israeli leaders have claimed that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon, making it an imminent threat. The decision to directly involve the US in the war comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that aimed to systematically eradicate the country's air defenses and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But US and Israeli officials have said American stealth bombers and the 30,000-pound (13,500-kilogram) bunker-buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground. 'We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,' Trump said in a post on social media. 'All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.' Trump added in a later post: 'This is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISRAEL, AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!' UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was 'gravely alarmed' by the 'dangerous escalation' of American strikes. 'There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control — with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world,' he said in a statement.
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
How far will US strikes set back Iran's nuclear programme?
The United States struck three key nuclear sites in Iran early on Sunday, injecting itself into Israel's war with Iran in a sophisticated mission and prompting fears of military escalation in the Middle East amid Israel's brutal onslaught of Gaza. In a televised address early on Sunday, US President Donald Trump justified the strikes, saying they were aimed at stopping 'the nuclear threat' posed by Iran. Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow sites, which are involved in the production or storage of enriched uranium, were targeted. 'Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,' he said, warning Tehran against retaliation. Israel and Trump claim that Iran can use the enriched uranium to make atomic warheads. But Iran insists its nuclear programme is solely for civilian purposes. The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has also rejected Israeli claims that Iran was on the verge of making nuclear weapons. Condemning the strikes, which US officials said were highly coordinated, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the time for diplomacy had passed and that his country had the right to defend itself. 'The warmongering, a lawless administration in Washington, is solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implications of its act of aggression,' he said at a news conference in Istanbul, Turkiye. Iranian officials, meanwhile, have not detailed the extent of the damage and have attempted to downplay the significance of the hits. Speaking on state TV, Hassan Abedini, the deputy political director of Iran's state broadcaster, said the three nuclear sites had been evacuated 'a while ago' and that they 'didn't suffer a major blow because the materials had already been taken out'. Here's what to know about the nuclear plants hit and what the attacks mean for Iran: Which facilities were hit? Trump on Sunday said a full payload of bombs 'obliterated' Iran's Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites. Iranian officials, according to the Reuters news agency, also confirmed that the three facilities were hit. Fordow is an underground enrichment facility in operation since 2006. Built deep inside the mountains some 48km (30 miles) from the Iranian city of Qom, north of Tehran, the site enjoys natural cover. The primary focus of Sunday's strikes, Fordow was hit with 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOPs) or 'bunker-buster' bombs delivered from B-2 stealth bomber planes, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a briefing on Sunday. The 13,000kg (28,700lb) GBU-57 MOP is the most powerful bunker-buster bomb, able to penetrate 60m (200 feet) below ground and delivering up to 2,400kg (5,300lb) of explosives, while the bombers are hard to detect. Israel had earlier attacked Fordow on June 13, causing surface damage, but security analysts believe only US bunker busters can penetrate the facility. An independent assessment of the scale of the damage is not yet available. Natanz is considered the largest nuclear enrichment facility in Iran, located about 300km (186 miles) south of Tehran. It is believed to consist of two facilities. One is the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), which is a test and research facility located above ground and used to assemble centrifuges, rapidly rotating machines used for uranium enrichment. According to the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative, the facility had close to a thousand centrifuges. The other facility, located deep beneath the ground, is the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine said on Sunday that 'more than two dozen' Tomahawk missiles were fired at Natanz and Isfahan. US media earlier reported the missiles were launched by submarines. Isfahan is an atomic research facility located in the central city of Isfahan. It was built in the 1970s and was used for uranium conversion. It was the last location hit before the US bombing mission, which involved about 125 aircraft, withdrew from the Iranian airspace, according to officials. Hegseth said the Iranians did not detect the mission and were notified afterwards. Are the sites destroyed? Independent impact assessment of the US strikes at Fordow remains unclear. Hegseth on Sunday said the US's 'initial assessment is that all our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and achieved the desired effect', citing particular damage at Fordow. An Iranian lawmaker told Al Jazeera that the site suffered superficial damage. Israeli strikes on the plant last week only caused 'limited, if any, damage' at the underground plant, according to IAEA boss Rafael Grossi. The extent of damage at Natanz is also unclear following Sunday's strike. Earlier Israeli attacks 'completely destroyed' the above-ground plant, and caused centrifuges in the underground parts of the uranium plant to be 'severely damaged if not destroyed altogether', even though it was not directly hit, Grossi told reporters last week. Meanwhile, the IAEA said on Sunday that six buildings at Isfahan suffered damage following the US attacks, including a workshop handling contaminated equipment. Earlier Israeli strikes had damaged four buildings on the site, the agency had reported, including the plant's central chemical laboratory. Initial reports from Iran and neighbouring Gulf countries such as Kuwait further indicate that there is no significant leakage of radioactive material from any of the plants. That could suggest that Iranian officials might have moved the stockpiles of enriched uranium out of the facilities targeted by the US, analysts say. According to the IRNA news agency, Reza Kardan, the deputy director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the head of the National Nuclear Safety System Center in the country, confirmed on Sunday that 'no radiation contamination or nuclear radiation has been observed outside' the sites. 'Preliminary plans had been made and measures had been taken to protect the safety and health of the dear people of the country, and despite the criminal actions this morning in attacking nuclear facilities, due to the previously planned measures and the measures taken, no radiation contamination or nuclear radiation has been observed outside these sites and facilities,' Kardan said. The IAEA also said the radiation levels near targeted sites had not increased. 'Following attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran – including Fordow – the IAEA can confirm that no increase in off-site radiation levels has been reported as of this time,' the agency said in a social media post on Sunday. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says it is likely Iran had taken precautionary actions ahead of the US attacks. 'It appears that they already had gotten an advanced warning,' he told Al Jazeera. 'They understood that he [Trump] was buying time while moving military assets in order to actually strike. So, I think for some time they have moved those assets – where they are is unclear at this point.' Will this derail Iran's nuclear efforts? The impact of the strikes on Iran's overall nuclear programme is yet unknown. However, analysts say there was no clear evidence that Iran had advanced so far as to be able to reach weaponisation in its nuclear programme in the first place. Parsi said Iran's most valuable nuclear asset is its stockpile of enriched uranium. 'As long as they continue to have that, they still actually have very much a nuclear programme that still could be weaponised,' he added. 'And I think we are going to start to hear from the Israelis in rather short order, that this was not the type of successful strike Trump has claimed, but they are going to start making the case that there needs to be a more ongoing bombing campaign against Iran.' Has Iran's nuclear programme suffered setbacks before? Yes. Iran's nuclear ambitions started back in the 1950s under the leadership of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a close ally of the US and Israel. The shah's original vision was to build Iran's nuclear capacities for both energy generation and, to a lesser extent, weapons manufacturing. The US, Germany, and France all supported the country with aid and technology. However, following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the new government, under leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, halted or paused parts of the programme, arguing that it was expensive and that it represented Iran's continued reliance on Western technology. Shelved or cancelled programmes further took a hit during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) when the country was forced to divert resources to the war effort after Iraq's invasion. Its Bushehr nuclear reactor site, which was under construction as part of a partnership with the industrial manufacturing giant Siemens, was bombed severely by Iraq and was left in near-total damage. Siemens eventually withdrew from the project. The government would later on reportedly restart the nuclear programme, although Iranian leadership has always insisted it is pursuing nuclear power for civilian use. Stuxnet – a computer virus developed by Israel and the US, likely launched back in 2005 but discovered in 2010 – caused extensive damage to Iran's nuclear capabilities. The programme, nicknamed Operation Olympic Games, compromised the Iranian network and caused centrifuges to tear themselves apart. It reportedly expanded rapidly under former US President Barack Obama, but began during the administration of US President George W Bush. Under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (officially known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA), the country was forced to limit its enrichment capabilities in exchange for sanctions relief. The deal, signed between Iran, China, Russia, the US, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union, capped enrichment at 3.67 percent. Sanctions, some of them in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, were gradually removed. Tehran complied with the terms of the deal, according to the (IAEA). It also agreed to allow the IAEA regular monitoring access. However, Trump pulled out of the agreement during his first term as US president in 2018, and slapped on sanctions as part of a 'maximum pressure' campaign, forcing Tehran to also discard the terms though it continued to cooperate with the IAEA.
