Trump says Iran must open itself to inspection to verify it doesn't restart its nuclear program
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he expects Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify that it doesn't restart its nuclear program.
Asked during a White House news conference if he would demand during expected talks with Iran that the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, or some other organization be authorized to conduct inspections, Trump responded that the Islamic Republic would have to cooperate with the group 'or somebody that we respect, including ourselves.'
Earlier, Iran's top diplomat said that the possibility of new negotiations with the United States on his country's nuclear program has been 'complicated' by the American attack on three of the sites, which he conceded caused 'serious damage."
The U.S. was one of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to limits on its uranium enrichment program in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits.
Nuclear talks
That deal unraveled after Trump unilaterally pulled out the U.S. during his first term. Trump has suggested he's interested in new talks with Iran and said the two sides would meet next week.
In an interview on Iranian state television broadcast late Thursday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left open the possibility that his country would again enter talks on its nuclear program, but suggested it wouldn't be anytime soon.
'No agreement has been made for resuming the negotiations,' he said. 'No time has been set, no promise has been made, and we haven't even talked about restarting the talks.'
The American decision to intervene militarily 'made it more complicated and more difficult' for talks on Iran's nuclear program, Araghchi said.
Friday prayers
Many imams, during Friday prayers, stressed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's message from Thursday that the war had been a victory for Iran.
Cleric Hamzeh Khalili, who is also the deputy chief justice of Iran, vowed during a prayer service in Tehran that the courts would prosecute people accused of spying for Israel 'in a special way.'
During the war with Israel, Iran hanged several people whom it already had in custody on espionage charges, sparking fears from activists that it could conduct a wave of executions after the conflict ended. Authorities reportedly have detained dozens in various cities on the charge of cooperating with Israel.
Israel relentlessly attacked Iran beginning on June 13, targeting its nuclear sites, defense systems, high-ranking military officials and atomic scientists.
In 12 days of strikes, Israel said that it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group.
Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted, but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people.
Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen Effie Defrin said Friday that in some areas, it had exceeded its operational goals, but needed to remain vigilant.
'We are under no illusion, the enemy has not changed its intentions,' he said.
The U.S. stepped in on Sunday to hit three of Iran's nuclear sites with bunker busters dropped by B-2 bombers — explosives designed to penetrate deep into the ground to damage the heavily fortified targets. Iran, in retaliation, fired missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar on Monday, but caused no known casualties.
Trump and Khamenei claims
Trump said that the American attacks 'completely and fully obliterated' Iran's nuclear program. However, Khamenei on Thursday accused the U.S. president of exaggerating the damage, saying the strikes didn't 'achieve anything significant.'
In response, Trump told reporters Friday that the sites were 'bombed to hell." He even directed a message to the supreme leader: 'Look you're a man of great faith. A man who's highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth. You got beat to hell."
A senior Israeli military official said Friday that their intelligence shows that Israel's strikes on various targets neutralized Iran's ability to enrich uranium to 90% for 'a prolonged period." It was unclear whether that contradicted a preliminary U.S. report that suggested the program had been set back months.
There has been speculation that Iran moved much of its highly-enriched uranium before the strikes, something that it told the IAEA that it planned to do.
Even if that turns out to be true, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told Radio France International that the damage done to the Fordo site, which was built into a mountain, 'is very, very, very considerable.'
Among other things, he said, centrifuges are 'quite precise machines,' and it's 'not possible' that the concussion from multiple 30,000-pound bombs wouldn't have caused 'important physical damage.'
'These centrifuges are no longer operational,' he said.
Araghchi himself acknowledged 'the level of damage is high, and it's serious damage.'
He added that Iran hadn't yet decided whether to allow in IAEA inspectors to assess the damage, but they would be kept out 'for the time being.'
___
Aamer Madhani in Washington. and Julia Frankel and Sam Mednick in Jerusalem, contributed to this story.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Wall Street Journal
37 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
For Iran's Nuclear Program, a Month Is Longer Than It Sounds
The furious debate over whether U.S. strikes obliterated Iran's nuclear program or only delayed its progress toward being able to build a nuclear weapon by a few months skips over a key component in the equation: Iran's political calculation. If Iran were to make the decision to build a nuclear weapon, it would be betting that it can complete the job and establish deterrence before the U.S. and Israel intervene—through military action, economic pressure or diplomacy—to stop it.
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump administration sues Los Angeles over sanctuary policies
The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles over its immigration policies, the Justice Department announced Monday, claiming sanctuary policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities clash with federal law. The filing marks an escalation in the Trump administration's feuding with California over immigration, and is the latest strike by DOJ against sanctuary-city laws in various states. 'Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,' Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the press release. 'Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level – it ends under President Trump.' The filing, which names the city, Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council, follows a wave of protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids targeting farms and businesses. It comes as the Trump administration is locked in separate litigation with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sued the administration to block the deployment of the National Guard in the city in response to the upheaval. The latest lawsuit argues that the city's 'refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities' has led to 'lawlessness, rioting, looting, and vandalism.' Los Angeles had lifted a curfew placed in response to the protests after a week as protesting died down. The filing also said that the city's policies are 'designed to and in fact do interfere with and discriminate against the Federal Government's enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,' an argument the administration has long used in its attack on sanctuary-city laws. The new suit was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Fernando Olguin, an Obama appointee. Earlier this year, the DOJ sued New York for impeding federal efforts to track down and deport undocumented immigrants, as well as Illinois and Chicago for related policies. In May, the department sued four cities in New Jersey over similar policies. Los Angeles has long employed sanctuary policies, including one that was passed shortly after President Donald Trump took office for his first term. More recently, after Trump won the election last year, the city passed a sanctuary policy prohibiting the use of city resources for federal immigration enforcement. Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez called out Trump for challenging sanctuary policies in California as well as other states, saying in a statement to POLITICO that 'he's trying to force every city and town to help him carry out his white nationalist agenda.' 'This baseless lawsuit only gets one thing right – we refuse to stand by and let Donald Trump deport innocent families. We're going to do everything within our power to keep families together,' Soto-Martinez said in the statement. Bass's office could not be immediately reached for comment.
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump plans to slap Japan with new tariffs amid stalled negotiations
President Donald Trump on Monday sought to turn the screws on one of the United States' top trading partners, threatening to unilaterally slap a new tariff on Japan if it doesn't agree to import more American goods. 'To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. 'In other words, we'll just be sending them a letter, and we love having them as a Trading Partner for many years to come.' Trump's threat came even as Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's top trade negotiator, recently met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington, and said both sides would continue to hold talks. The two spoke over the phone on Saturday and Sunday, according to the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs. But the president on Monday appeared to be frustrated that talks have stalled for weeks, particularly as the Japanese have insisted that any deal must remove U.S. tariffs on Japanese-made automobiles and auto-parts — a dynamic American auto makers have criticized because it would mean a lower tariff for foreign cars, compared with cars that are mostly built in North America. It echoed the sentiments he expressed in a Sunday interview, in which he suggested he would maintain a 25 percent tariff hitting Japanese autos as talks stall. 'Dear Mr. Japan, here's the story. You're going to pay a 25 percent tariff on your cars,' Trump said in an interview with Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo". 'They won't take our cars, right? And yet we take millions and millions of their cars into the United States. It's not fair,' Trump added. Trump has also pushed Japan and South Korea to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product, using a similar tactic that he has employed with European countries. The White House was not immediately able to provide further details, and the Japanese embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. In April, Trump levied a 24 percent tariff on most Japanese goods as part of his sweeping 'Liberation Day' tariffs but put those on pause soon after in the hope of striking a bilateral deal. It was not immediately clear whether Trump intends to reimpose that rate, or select a new level, nor did he say when he intends to send Japan a letter with further details. U.S. trade negotiators have pressured Japan to import more American rice, soybeans and maize, according to the Japan Times. Under a deal with the World Trade Organization, Japan imports 770,000 metric tons of tariff-free rice each year, with about half of that coming from the U.S. Trump's post comes just days after the president similarly threatened to unilaterally impose new tariffs on Canada in an effort to force its government to abandon the so-called digital services tax, which it did Sunday night.
