logo
Keir Starmer calls on Iran to ‘return to negotiating table' as he issues response to US bombing nuclear sites

Keir Starmer calls on Iran to ‘return to negotiating table' as he issues response to US bombing nuclear sites

Scottish Sun3 hours ago

It comes as Iran has threatened 'everlasting consequences'
'GRAVE THREAT' Keir Starmer calls on Iran to 'return to negotiating table' as he issues response to US bombing nuclear sites
SIR Keir Starmer has said the US took action to 'alleviate' Iran's nuclear threat.
The Prime Minister urged the Tehran 'to return to the negotiating table and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis' as he responded to Trump's blitz.
In a statement, the Labour party leader said: "Iran's nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security.
"Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat.
"The situation in the Middle East remains volatile and stability in the region is a priority.
"We call on Iran to return to the negotiating table and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis."
This comes after the US military bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities in an historic strike against the Islamic Republic.
Iran has since threatened "everlasting consequences" as Houthis vowed to target US forces.
In a statement posted on X, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi wrote: "The United States, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has committed a grave violation of the UN Charter, international law and the NPT by attacking Iran's peaceful nuclear installations.
"The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences. Each and every member of the UN must be alarmed over this extremely dangerous, lawless and criminal behavior.
"In accordance with the UN Charter and its provisions allowing a legitimate response in self-defense, Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people."
Iran has lashed out with two rounds of missiles into Israel in the wake of America's strikes.
The IDF announced about an hour ago that the second wave was on its way, and urged all Israelis to obey the instruction of the Home Front Command.
Citizens were also instructed not to share information about locations or casualties.
At least 16 people are reported to have been injured.
Meanwhile Yemen's Houthi's warned they will target US ships in the Red Sea if they are involved in any potential attack on Iran, the group announced on Saturday.
The group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree said: 'We will target US ships and battleships in the Red Sea if Washington participates in the attack on Iran.'
Saree added how they consider any potential Israeli attack on Iran to be aimed at 'removing Tehran as an obstacle to an Israeli plan to dominate the region'.
In Washington, Trump said the "highly successful" military operation "completely obliterated" Iran's nuclear sites, adding that the US teamed up with Israel to carry out the bombings.
The president added that Iran must now make peace or "we will go after" other targets in Iran after the US strikes.
Trump said in a nationally televised speech at the White House: "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."
But the president also said that if Iran didn't cut a peace deal now it would continue to face American military power.
He said: 'Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier."
"There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days."
'Remember there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal.
'But if peace does not come quickly we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.
'Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight."
America has now directly joined Israel's campaign of bombing Iran as they both seek to obliterate Tehran's nuclear program.
A response from Iran, or from the Ayatollah in hiding, has not yet come.
Ali Khamenei is believed to be cowering away in the secret lair as Israeli missile attacks rain down nearby.
Two informed sources inside the country told Iran International the country's ageing dictator is holed up in the bunker in Lavizan, a neighbourhood in Tehran.
Posting on Truth Social, President Donald Trump said US bombers targeted Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan enrichment sites - all key to Iran's doomsday project.
He said a full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Netanyahu sees lifelong dream coming true as Iranian beast reels
Netanyahu sees lifelong dream coming true as Iranian beast reels

Telegraph

time33 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Netanyahu sees lifelong dream coming true as Iranian beast reels

For Benjamin Netanyahu the bombing of Fordow and the destruction of Iran's nuclear programme marks the best part of a life's work – and a promise kept to Israel. That it was US bombers that finished the job will make not a jot of difference. Iran's theocratic regime has been Bibi's obsession for the best part of four decades and few will see the destruction of its nuclear sites as anyone else's victory but his own. A week last Friday, he took care to remind people of this when Israel launched its first strikes against Iran. 'If I may, on a personal level, I've been watching this threat for over 40 years,' he told the nation. 'In 1982, I wrote in one of my books – that's three years, only three years, after the establishment of the regime of the ayatollahs – that the biggest threat faced by humanity and by us, our state, will be the terror regime of the ayatollahs.' On Sunday morning, on the international stage, he was busy praising the American effort ('Congratulations, President Trump. Your bold decision to target Iran's nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history'). But the Israeli prime minister was bigging up the president safe in the knowledge that, at home, it was his name - not Trump's - that was being mentioned second only to God's. 'This morning, the world is a better and safer world,' said Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's messianic finance minister. 'Thank you to the Lord of the Universe. Thank you to Prime Minister Netanyahu … [oh, and] Thank you to President Trump'. Most Israelis only got the news when air raid sirens sounded at 7.30am and they got to the bomb shelters. In mine in central Tel Aviv, there was no outward celebration but relieved smiles broke across most peoples faces as they lit up their phones. Over the past week, there has been real anxiety here that Trump would chicken out and leave Israel to hang. The two week timeline set a few days ago by the president was widely seen as opening the door to a climb down. That mood has shifted dramatically. 'For me the biggest message this sends is that no one f---s with us,' a young South African Israeli told me after the blast doors opened. Where things go from here is anyone's guess but, make no mistake, Netanyahu, the ultimate political operator, has plans. His generals have been very careful over the last few days to stress in their morning briefings that the existential threat Iran poses to Israel is, not singular, but three pronged: nuclear, ballistic missiles and Oct 7 style terrorism. Yet elections loom in Israel (they must be held by Oct 2026 at the latest) and as the polls stood the day before the strike, Netanyahu was still trailing. He will no doubt aim to exploit the destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities to boost his prospects but - as happened to Winston Churchill after the Second World War - Israel may yet choose a different leader to build the peace, if indeed peace comes. How this would be taken by Netanyahu is not clear. Churchill turned to writing, painting and bricklaying but Bibi is a very different animal and has corruption charges against him to contend with, not to mention alleged war crimes. One Israeli commentator recently wrote that he 'he sees himself as a type of white knight fighting against the Iranian monster in order to save humankind'. His father was a famous Israeli historian known for his revisionism and Netanyahu is said to have been shaped by him. If he is remembered for slaying the Iranian beast, one suspects he will ultimately retire satisfied, no matter what else he faces.

Trump is making the world a safer place
Trump is making the world a safer place

Spectator

time36 minutes ago

  • Spectator

Trump is making the world a safer place

Strength works. It's a foreign policy lesson that sounds too simple to be true and too unequivocal to be wise, and yet there is much truth and a good deal of wisdom in it. Strength does not mean wanton thuggery or hubristic swagger, it must be considered, well-regulated and guided by reflection and sober analysis. But when it is properly deployed to clear and realistic ends, strength can achieve results that negotiation, compromise and avoidance cannot. Strength, when put in service of just goals, can sometimes be the preferable moral option, checking threats, risks and baneful intentions. At some point, US and European foreign policy elites are going to have to reckon with the fact that Trump keeps succeeding where they have repeatedly failed Donald Trump's decision overnight to bomb Iran's nuclear weapons programme is an almost textbook case in the effectiveness and virtue of strength. While we wait to learn just how much damage has been done to the Islamic Republic's uranium enrichment facility in Fordow, its sister plant in Natanz, and the nuclear technology and uranium storage site in Isfahan, it seems likely that, at a minimum, Tehran's plot to get its hands on nuclear weapons has been severely disrupted. The prospect of a nuclear-armed fundamentalist Shia state that proclaims 'Death to America', bankrolls terrorism against the West, and has designs to dominate the Middle East was a scenario too grave for any further delay. Trump has done what his predecessors ought to have done but for various reasons, not all of them excusable, did not. At some point, US and European foreign policy elites are going to have to reckon with the fact that Trump keeps succeeding where they have repeatedly failed, and does so by disregarding the assertions they state with unshakeable certainty. It was Trump who recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital while brokering normalisation agreements between Israel and Arab states, a remarkable feat of balance and balls. It was Trump who tore up Barack Obama's naive and dangerous Iran deal and took out terror chief Qasem Soleimani. It was Trump who declared Communist China's systematic destruction of the Uyghurs a genocide and who convinced India and Pakistan to back down from their recent stand-off. Now it appears to be Trump who has prevented the rise of a nuclear Iran. You can decry his hostility towards Ukraine and its struggle to restore national sovereignty and expel foreign invaders. You can deride absurdities like his proposal to annex Canada or his decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico. The man is a pinless grenade tossed into one global crisis after another. It's impossible to know when he'll detonate and what the fallout will be. But sometimes he explodes in a way that hits the right target, takes out a threat that would yield to nothing else, and in doing so makes the world a safer place. This is one of those times. There will be blowback — there always is — and this could involve attacks by Iran or its proxies on US military bases, armed forces personnel or political leaders, but that is no reason not to have acted. A regime that kills and kidnaps Americans and funds front groups that do the same must be confronted. Trump's strikes might have wounded the tyrants in Tehran but they and their rule will have to be ended to remove the threat to the United States. Iran's preferred system of government is Iran's business, but that government cannot promote, fund or conduct terrorism against the United States, its allies or its strategic or commercial interests. 'Death to America' must be met with 'Death to the Ayatollah'. The strikes will suffice for now. They have not destroyed the regime but they have done the next-best thing: humiliated it. Strength works. It works even if the United Nations condemns it, the European Union wrings its hands, and the British foreign office pleads for restraint. It works despite what the academics say, what the NGOs demand, and what the journalists pronounce. It works whether the anti-American left howls, the isolationist right seethes, or Tucker Carlson cackles at the very thought. Strength works and, for some reason, leaders and policymakers have decided to allow Donald Trump to be the man who teaches the world that lesson once more.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store