Israel-Iran war live: Trump casts doubt on Nato defence pact before summit
On his way to the Nato summit, President Trump cast doubt on US commitment to Article 5 — the collective defence pact at the core of the alliance.
'Depends on your definition. There are numerous definitions of Article 5. You know that, right? But I'm committed to being their friends,' he told reporters on Air Force One.
'I'm committed to saving lives. I'm committed to life and safety. And I'm going to give you an exact definition when I get there. I just don't want to do it on the back of an airplane.'
To placate Trump, Nato members have hammered out a compromise deal to that earmarks 3.5 per cent of GDP for core military spending and 1.5 per cent on related support by 2035.
Nato summits — meetings of the alliance's North Atlantic Council at leader level — are opened by the secretary-general, as chairman, who is followed by the president of the United States.
This order will be followed at the Hague summit but, according to diplomats, Trump has also asked to speak at the end of the two-and-half-hour session before Mark Rutte, the Nato chief, closes the summit.
This moment, given the refusal of Spain, Belgium and Slovakia to meet the new Nato target of 5 per cent of GDP spent on defence, could be the flashpoint of the summit.
President Trump will meet President Zelensky today, it has been confirmed.
Encounters between the US and Ukrainian presidents have been difficult. Earlier this year, Trump openly insulted Zelensky at the White House.
Ukraine is not formally on the agenda for the Nato summit, which is focused on one issue — increased defence spending — but Zelensky is present.
John Healey, the defence secretary, has suggested he would not trust leaked intelligence reports that US airstrikes only delayed Iran's nuclear programme by a few months.
Asked by Times Radio if he was suggesting that he would put his faith in a US official government report on the damage, he said: 'No, I'm saying that ultimately the best guarantee both of peace and that Iran never develops a nuclear weapon is a diplomatic path and a nuclear settlement, and that's what we're working for.'
Rutte said the alliance would try to 'equalise' spending on defence among the members and shift the burden away from the US.
'Yes, there is also an expectation which will be fulfilled today, that the Canadians and the Europeans will speed up their spending, making sure that we not only are able to defend ourselves against the Russians and others, but also to equalise, and this is fair, that we spend the same as the US is spending,' he said.
'What we now will do over the coming years is to bring down, step by step, shift the burden away from the United States, more towards the Europeans and the Canadians, which I think is fair.'
America's support for Nato and its mutual defence clause Article 5 is solid if European and Canadian allies increase defence spending, Rutte says.
He dismissed concerns after comments from President Trump that appeared to contradict the core principle of the alliance, that the US and others would come to the aid of any member that was attacked.
'For me, there is absolute clarity that the United States is totally committed to Nato, totally committed to Article 5,' he said.
Setting one the themes for the summit, Rutte praised Trump for pressuring allies to spend more on defence. 'Would you really think that the seven or eight countries, not at 2 per cent [of GDP] at the beginning of this year, would have reached 2 per cent now if Trump would not have been elected president of the United States?'
'Trump is in an excellent mood,' said Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of Nato, before what is expected to be a tense summit in the Hague.
Rutte said that he was 'not worried' about a meeting where Nato allies will commit themselves to spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035 — except for Spain, which has refused to switch expenditure from welfare to the military.
'These are difficult decisions. Politicians have to make decisions,' Rutte said. 'Countries have to find the money. It is not easy. At the same time, there is absolute conviction with my colleagues at the table, that given the threat from the Russians, given the international security situation, there is no alternative. We've got to do this.'
President Trump has shared a video showing B-2 warplanes dropping dozens of bombs to a soundtrack repeating the words 'bomb Iran'.
The 60-second video the US president posted on his Truth Social platform features a parodied version of the Beach Boys' song Barbara Ann.
The lyrics include: 'Old Uncle Sam's getting pretty hot. Time to turn Iran into a parking lot. Bomb Iran. Bomb. Bomb. Bomb.'
The price of oil seems to have found a floor as investors assess the state of hostilities between Israel and Iran and the global stock market rally appears to have faded for now.
The FTSE 100 is forecast to rise 1.5 points at the open. Asian markets were higher after gains on Wall Street, and the dollar and gold have strengthened.
• Follow all the latest business developments live
Trump's special envoy to the Middle East called the leaked intelligence assessment 'treasonous'.
'It's outrageous, it's treasonous, and it has to be investigated. Whoever's responsible for it should be held accountable,' Steve Witkoff told Fox News.
Witkoff said he had read all the damage assessment reports and that there was 'no doubt' the three nuclear sites were 'obliterated'.
Trump later posted a clip of the Fox interview and a quote from Witkoff on Truth Social.Donald Trump has said he is not seeking regime change in Iran because he does not want 'chaos.'
'No, if there was, there was, but no I don't want it. I'd like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible,' Trump said when asked to clarify a social media post in which he seemed to advocate regime change.
'Regime change takes chaos, and ideally we don't want to see so much chaos,' the US president told reporters on Air Force One.
'You know, the Iranians are very good traders, very good business people, and they've got a lot of oil. They should be fine. They should be able to rebuild and do a good job. They're never going to have nuclear but other than that, they should do a great job.'
On Sunday, following US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump wrote: 'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!'
Donald Trump has attacked US media, responding to leaked intelligence reports that US airstrikes only delayed Iran's nuclear programme.
'FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY. THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIMES AND CNN ARE GETTING SLAMMED BY THE PUBLIC!' The president posted on his Truth Social platform.
Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, have claimed the strikes destroyed Iran's nuclear programme. But the intelligence assessment suggested it had been delayed rather than destroyed, according to CNN, which was the first to publish details of the report, citing two anonymous sources.
Israel's main international Ben Gurion Airport is also set to restart operating as normal following the ceasefire with Iran.
'Restrictions on the number of incoming and outgoing flights, as well as the number of passengers on each flight, have been lifted,' the Israel Airports Authority said.
The movement will be good news for British tourists who were stranded in Israel after the start of the war with Iran on June 13.
Some have already made their way home through neighbouring Jordan.
Schools, offices and public transport are set to reopen today in Israel after the lifting of restrictions that were imposed during the war with Iran.
Residents of Tel Aviv slept through an entire night and early morning without the sound of the air raid warnings that jolted them out of bed and sent them running for shelters from June 13 to June 24.
Yet this is not a country at peace: the Israeli military announced today that seven of its soldiers had been killed during fighting in the Gaza Strip.
Twenty of the hostages that were abducted by Hamas in October 2023 are still thought to be alive and there are now renewed calls for an end to the fighting there, too.
'After 12 days and nights during which the people of Israel couldn't sleep because of Iran, we can finally go back to not sleeping because of the hostages,' a hostage family group said.
Iran has hanged three men accused of spying for Israel, the day after a ceasefire between the two countries came into effect.
'Idris Ali, Azad Shojai and Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul, who attempted to import equipment into the country to carry out assassinations, were arrested and tried for… cooperation favouring the Zionist regime,' Iran's judiciary said on Wednesday. 'The sentence was carried out this morning… and they were hanged.'
The executions took place in Urmia, a northwestern city close to the border with Turkey, the judiciary said.
It shared photos of the three men in blue prison uniforms.
Since the war with Israel erupted on June 13, Tehran vowed swift trials for people arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel.
It carried out executions of men accused of being Mossad agents on both Sunday and Monday.
Israel's military said that seven personnel were killed during combat in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
The seven soldiers from the IDF's Combat Engineering Corps were killed in an explosion at approximately 6.30pm in Khan Yunis on Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post reported.
A soldier was severely injured on Tuesday in a separate incident in southern Gaza, the military added in a statement.
Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said late on Tuesday that talks between the US and Iran were 'promising' and that Washington was hopeful for a long-term peace deal.
'We are already talking to each other, not just directly but also through interlocutors. I think that the conversations are promising. We are hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran,' Witkoff told Fox News.
'Now it's for us to sit down with the Iranians and get to a comprehensive peace agreement, and I am very confident that we are going to achieve that,' added Witkoff.
The US airstrikes on Iran did not 'obliterate' Iran's nuclear programme and only set it back a few months, according to a leaked intelligence assessment that drew a furious response from the White House.
President Trump has claimed that the American strikes on three sites had 'completely and totally obliterated' Iran's nuclear programme.
But an assessment compiled by the Defence Intelligence Agency found that attacks on Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan did significant damage without destroying the facilities, it was reported on Tuesday night.
The agency found that at least some of Iran's highly enriched uranium needed to create a nuclear bomb was moved before the strikes by US B-2 stealth bombers on Sunday, according to the Associated Press, which cited two anonymous sources familiar with the agency's classified report.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called the leak 'a clear attempt to demean President Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear programme'.
She added: 'Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000lb bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.'
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