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Trump says 'very big' trade deal coming up with India
US President Donald Trump said a "very big" trade deal is on cards with India, hinting at significant progress in the negotiation process of a long-awaited bilateral trade agreement between the two countries. 'We are having some great deals. We have one coming up, maybe with India. Very big one. Where we're going to open up India," said Trump while speaking at the 'Big Beautiful Bill' event at the White House on Friday.
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Mint
29 minutes ago
- Mint
Where is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? Iran's Supreme Leader resurfaces on TV, yet questions linger over his whereabouts
On June 26, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave his first address to the nation since the country's 12-day war with Israel ended with a ceasefire that the US President Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar brokered earlier this week. Khamenei, in a pre-recorded video message, downplayed reports of damage to the country's nuclear programme by US strikes and declared victory over both Israel and the United States. 'The Islamic republic slapped America in the face,' said Khamenei, 86. He said that the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities did not do 'anything important' and that the United States only intervened to save Israel from being 'completely destroyed.' Khamenei has reportedly been hiding for nearly two weeks after Israel's strike on the country on June 13. Israel also eliminated Iran's senior military leadership and some scientists during the strikes. The Islamic Republic retaliated with missile strikes on Israel. The US said on Sunday that the country's military 'obliterated' Iran's main nuclear sites using 14 bunker-buster bombs, more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles and over 125 military aircraft. Iran attacked a US air base in neighbouring Qatar. Iranian officials claimed the attacks left 627 people dead and nearly 5,000 injured. Iran's retaliation targeted parts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, leaving a trail of damaged buildings and at least 14 people dead, according to reports. On Tuesday, however, Israel and Iran confirmed a ceasefire, hours after President Trump announced an imminent ceasefire between the two nations on Truth Social. In his address on Thursday, the ageing Iranian leader Khamenei sat flanked by an Iranian flag and a portrait of his predecessor and the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei spoke while looking into the camera. But it was unclear exactly when the video was recorded. According to a Reuters investigation citing five sources with direct knowledge of succession planning, Khamenei has gone into hiding with his family and is being protected by the elite Vali-ye Amr unit of the Revolutionary Guards. While he is reportedly still being briefed on internal matters, a special three-member committee—appointed by Khamenei himself two years ago—is accelerating efforts to identify his successor, sources told Reuters. In the event of Khamenei's death, the ruling establishment aims to swiftly announce a new leader to maintain national stability. As the supreme leader, Khamenei has the last word on all major state matters. As the commander in chief of the armed forces, he would be expected to approve any military decision, including the attack on the American base or the ceasefire deal with Israel. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both suggested during the war that Khamenei was vulnerable and not immune from their strikes. In an interview with The New York Times on June 25, Mehdi Fazaeli, head of Khamenei's archives office, was asked about the Supreme Leader's well-being. "People are very worried about the Supreme Leader," the host said. Without offering a direct answer, Fazaeli said, "We all should be praying." He added that he received numerous inquiries from officials, and viewers had sent a flood of messages asking the same question. The interview was done before Khamenei's June 26 televised address Fazaeli claimed that the people who are responsible for protecting the Supreme Leader are doing their job well, adding, "God willing, our people can celebrate victory next to their leader, God willing." Earlier, officials said that Khamenei had been hiding in a secure underground bunker and was avoiding all electronic communication to prevent assassination attempts. During the anti-US and anti-Israel protest last week, before the ceasefire, women were seen carrying portraits of Khamenei in their hands. Newspapers in Iran had voiced the concern about Khamenei whereabouts, too. "His days-long absence has made all of us who love him very worried," Mohsen Khalifeh, editor of Khaneman, a daily newspaper. The three-member panel of the top clerical body in Iran, appointed by Khamenei himself two years ago to identify his replacement, has accelerated its planning, according to news agency Reuters. According to an earlier in The New York Times, Khamenei has also picked replacements in his chain of military commands in case they are killed in Israeli strikes. The report, citing three Iranian officials familiar with Khamenei's emergency war plans, said that the Supreme Leader 'mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications to make it harder to find him'. 'He would be well advised to be cautious, despite the fragile ceasefire that the US President Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar brokered. Though President Trump reportedly told Israel not to kill Iran's supreme leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule it out,' wrote Kasra Naji, Special Correspondent, BBC Persian. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that his country's forces would have killed Khamenei if it had been possible during the recent 12-day war fought between both nations. 'I estimate that if Khamenei had been in our sights, we would have taken him out," Katz said in an interview with Israel's Kan public television. But Khamenei understood this, went underground to very great depths, and broke off contacts with the commanders who replaced those commanders who were eliminated, so it wasn't realistic in the end," Katz was quoted as saying. The Islamic republic slapped America in the face. Sanctions have crippled the Iranian economy, reducing a top oil exporter to a poor and struggling shadow of its former self, Naji said in the BBC report. Netanyahu and Trump had both suggested at various times during the air war that Khamenei's life could be in danger as regime change could be a result of the war that ended with the ceasefire on Tuesday.
NDTV
29 minutes ago
- NDTV
US Strikes On Iran's Nuclear Sites Only Set Back Its Program By Months
Washington: A US intelligence report suggests that Iran's nuclear program has been set back only a few months after US strikes and was not "completely and fully obliterated" as President Donald Trump has said, according to two people familiar with the early assessment. The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran's nuclear facilities. According to the people, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The White House rejected the DIA assessment, calling it "flat-out wrong." On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a post on X that "New intelligence confirms" what Trump has stated: "Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do." Gabbard's office declined to respond to questions about the details of the new intelligence, or whether it would be declassified and released publicly. The office of the director of national intelligence coordinates the work of the nation's 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA, which is the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, responsible for producing intelligence on foreign militaries and the capabilities of adversaries. The DIA's assessment was preliminary and will be refined as new information becomes available, the agency wrote in a statement on Wednesday. Its authors also characterised it as "low confidence," an acknowledgement that the report's conclusions could be mistaken. According to the DIA statement, analysts have not been able to review the sites themselves. The DIA also said it is working with the FBI to investigate the unauthorised leak of the assessment. The U.S. has held out hope of restarting negotiations with Iran to convince it to give up its nuclear program entirely, but some experts fear that the U.S. strikes - and the potential of Iran retaining some of its capabilities - could push Tehran toward developing a functioning weapon. The assessment also suggests that at least some of Iran's highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved out of multiple sites before the U.S. strikes and survived, and it found that Iran's centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact, according to the people. At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, where U.S. B-2 stealth bombers dropped several 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, the assessment found. The people said that intelligence officials had warned of such an outcome in previous assessments ahead of the strike on Fordo. The White House pushes back Trump defended his characterisation of the strike's impact. "It was obliteration, and you'll see that," Trump told reporters while attending the NATO summit in the Netherlands. He said the intelligence was "very inconclusive" and described media outlets as "scum" for reporting on it. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the NATO summit, said there would be an investigation into how the intelligence assessment leaked and dismissed it as "preliminary" and "low confidence." Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, "These leakers are professional stabbers." The intelligence assessment was first reported by CNN on Tuesday. The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said its assessment was that the U.S. and Israeli strikes have "set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years." It did not give evidence to back up its claim. Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff, who said he has read damage assessment reports from U.S. intelligence and other nations, reiterated Tuesday that the strikes had deprived Iran of the ability to develop a weapon and called it outrageous that the U.S. assessment was shared with reporters. "It's treasonous so it ought to be investigated," Witkoff said on Fox News Channel. Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strike left the sites in Iran "totally destroyed" and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities. Netanyahu said Tuesday in a televised statement: "For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed ... we brought to ruin Iran's nuclear program." He said the U.S. joining Israel was "historic" and thanked Trump. Outside experts had suspected Iran had likely already hidden the core components of its nuclear program as it stared down the possibility that American bunker-buster bombs could be used on its nuclear sites. Bulldozers and trucks visible in satellite imagery taken just days before the strikes have fuelled speculation among experts that Iran may have transferred its half-ton stockpile of enriched uranium to an unknown location. And the incomplete destruction of the nuclear sites could still leave the country with the capacity to spin up weapons-grade uranium and develop a bomb. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has enriched significant quantities of uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian use. The U.S. and others assessed prior to the U.S. strikes that Iran's theocratic leadership had not yet ordered the country to pursue an operational nuclear weapon, but the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs should it choose to do so. Vice President JD Vance said in a Monday interview on Fox News Channel that even if Iran is still in control of its stockpile of 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, the U.S. has cut off Iran's ability to convert it to a nuclear weapon. "If they have 60% enriched uranium, but they don't have the ability to enrich it to 90%, and, further, they don't have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success. That is the obliteration of their nuclear program, which is why the president, I think, rightly is using that term," Vance said. Approximately 42 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium is theoretically enough to produce one atomic bomb if enriched further to 90%, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. What experts say Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi informed U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on June 13 - the day Israel launched its military campaign against Iran - that Tehran would "adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials." American satellite imagery and analysis firm Maxar Technologies said its satellites photographed trucks and bulldozers at the Fordo site beginning on June 19, three days before the Americans struck. Subsequent imagery "revealed that the tunnel entrances into the underground complex had been sealed off with dirt prior to the U.S. airstrikes," said Stephen Wood, senior director at Maxar. "We believe that some of the trucks seen on 19 June were carrying dirt to be used as part of that operation." Some experts say those trucks could also have been used to move out Iran's enriched uranium stockpile. "It is plausible that Iran moved the material enriched to 60% out of Fordo and loaded it on a truck," said Eric Brewer, a former U.S. intelligence analyst and now deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Iran could also have moved other equipment, including centrifuges, he said, noting that while enriched uranium, which is stored in fortified canisters, is relatively easy to transport, delicate centrifuges are more challenging to move without inflicting damage. Apart from its enriched uranium stockpile, over the past four years Iran has produced the centrifuges key to enrichment without oversight from the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Iran also announced on June 12 that it has built and will activate a third nuclear enrichment facility. IAEA chief Grossi said the facility was located in Isfahan, a place where Iran has several other nuclear sites. After being bombarded by both the Israelis and the Americans, it is unclear if, or how quickly, Isfahan's facilities, including tunnels, could become operational. But given all of the equipment and material likely still under Iran's control, this offers Tehran "a pretty solid foundation for a reconstituted covert program and for getting a bomb," Brewer said. Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan policy center, said that "if Iran had already diverted its centrifuges," it can "build a covert enrichment facility with a small footprint and inject the 60% gas into those centrifuges and quickly enrich to weapons grade levels." But Brewer also underlined that if Iran launched a covert nuclear program, it would do so at a disadvantage, having lost to Israeli and American strikes vital equipment and personnel that are crucial for turning the enriched uranium into a functional nuclear weapon.
NDTV
31 minutes ago
- NDTV
Days After US Strikes, What We Know About Damage To Iran's Nuclear Program
Vienna: The big question following US and Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear program is: What remains of it? US President Donald Trump has said three targets hit by American strikes were "obliterated." His defense secretary said they were "destroyed." A preliminary report issued by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, meanwhile, said the strikes did significant damage to the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan sites, but did not totally destroy the facilities. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as a result of Israeli and US strikes, the agency has "seen extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran," including those three. Israel claims it has set back Iran's nuclear program by "many years." Officials and experts are still assessing the damage, and their evaluation could change. Two of the major questions they are trying to address are where Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is and what is the state of the centrifuges that enrich the fuel. The answer to the first is not clear, but the IAEA believes significant damage was done to centrifuges at the two enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordo. The IAEA - and the world - want to know the state of both the uranium and centrifuges because if Iran chooses to make a nuclear weapon, then making the fuel required would be just a short, technical step away. Iran has always maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful. But it has enriched significant quantities of uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian use, and Israel launched strikes on nuclear and military targets on June 13, accusing Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons. The US joined that attack on Sunday, dropping 14 bunker-buster bombs on two sites. Iran retaliated with strikes on Israeli and American targets. Israel and Iran have since agreed to a ceasefire. Here's what we know - and don't know - about the state of Iran's nuclear program. It's possible the nuclear fuel was moved At least some of Iran's highly enriched uranium may have been moved before the US strikes, the assessment from the DIA suggests, according to two people familiar with the evaluation. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. That would mean that some of the stockpile may have survived. The assessment was preliminary and will be refined as new information becomes available, the agency has said. Its authors also characterized it as "low confidence," an acknowledgement that the conclusions could be mistaken. The White House has called the assessment "flat-out wrong," pointing to the power of the bombs to back up the president's characterization that the sites hit had been destroyed. Iran has previously threatened to hide its enriched uranium if attacked, and reiterated its pledge the day Israel launched its military campaign. Enriched uranium is stored in canisters that can be moved around fairly easy. In May, the IAEA, which is the UN nuclear watchdog, said Iran had amassed 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%. If it is further enriched to 90%, it would be enough to make nine nuclear weapons, according to the U.N.'s yardstick, though a weapon would require other expertise, such as a detonation device. Before the war, experts believe the stockpile was mainly stored in two places: underground tunnels at a facility in Isfahan, and in a heavily fortified underground enrichment site in Fordo. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Thursday that he was "not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be - moved or otherwise." Trucks seen at nuclear facility prompt speculation Satellite imagery showed trucks and bulldozers at the Fordo site beginning June 19, three days before the US struck. Eric Brewer, a former US intelligence analyst and now deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said it's "plausible" that Iran used the trucks to take nuclear fuel away. But Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Breugel think tank in Brussels, disagreed: "I think that that was a decoy more than anything else." Subsequent satellite imagery "revealed that the tunnel entrances into the underground complex had been sealed off with dirt prior to the U.S. airstrikes," said Stephen Wood, senior director at American satellite imagery and analysis firm Maxar Technologies. "We believe that some of the trucks seen on 19 June were carrying dirt to be used as part of that operation." Trump offered a similar explanation In a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday, he wrote: "The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!" Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the bombs were dropped onto the two main ventilation shafts of Fordo. He said Iran attempted to cover the shafts with concrete before the U.S. attack, but the cap was "forcibly removed by the main weapon." Centrifuges are highly sensitive and vulnerable to damage Inspectors from the IAEA have remained in Iran throughout the war, but they are currently unable to inspect any nuclear sites due to safety concerns. But with the "explosive payload utilized, and the extreme vibration-sensitive nature of centrifuges," the agency believes "very significant damage is expected to have occurred" as a result of U.S. airstrikes at Fordo, according to a statement from IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to the agency's board earlier this week. The centrifuges there are "no longer operational," Grossi told Radio France Internationale on Thursday. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium - and could eventually bring it up to weapons-grade levels, if Iran chooses to do so. Natanz, Iran's biggest enrichment site, also houses centrifuges. In its underground plant, the IAEA believes most if not all of the centrifuge cascades - groups of centrifuges working together to more quickly enrich uranium - were destroyed by an Israeli strike that cut off power to the site. Its aboveground plant has also been "functionally destroyed," the agency said. Strikes also caused "extensive damage" at Isfahan, according to the IAEA, especially at the uranium conversion facility and the plant for making uranium metal that's vital to producing a nuclear bomb. What the damage means for Iran's program is disputed Much like Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Iran's nuclear program has been brought "to ruin." The Israel Atomic Energy Commission believes the recent strikes have set back Tehran's ability to develop an atomic weapon by years. Israeli officials have not said how they reached this assessment. The DIA assessment, however, suggested that Iran's nuclear program has been set back only a few months, according to the people familiar with it. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in an interview with Politico, limited his own evaluation to saying Iran was "much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action." Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Trump "exaggerated" the impact of the American strikes.
