Iran-Israel updates: Search begins for permanent peace, but nukes are off the table
President Donald Trump said he was confident Tehran would pursue a diplomatic path towards reconciliation.
The tenuous ceasefire that has halted withering rocket attacks between Iran and Israel appeared to be holding Thursday ahead of talks next week that could lead to a more permanent peace.
President Donald Trump, however, said Wednesday that reaching an agreement on nuclear arms with Tehran was not necessary, saying his decision to blast Iranian nuclear sites with massive bunker-busting bombs had effectively ended the war. He said he did not see Iran continuing to pursue nuclear weapons.
Tehran has repeatedly denied decades of accusations by Western leaders that its nuclear program sought to develop nuclear arms. But Tehran has also adamantly refused to abandon its uranium-enrichment program.
"We're going to talk to them next week," Trump said at a news conference Wednesday. "We may sign an agreement. I don't know. To me, I don't think it's that necessary."
Trump's envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, reiterated in an interview with CNBC the administration's position that Iran – deemed by the U.S. a state sponsor of terrorism – can't be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.
'We can't have weaponization,'' Witkoff said. 'That will destabilize the entire region. Everyone will then need a bomb and we just can't have that.''
Trump said he was confident Tehran would pursue a diplomatic path towards reconciliation.
"I'll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover," he said.
Trump says US, Iranian officials to hold talks after bombing of nuclear sites
Iranian Nobel laureate says Tehran government could fall
Iran's war with Israel has revealed the weakness of Tehran's leadership and could lead to regime change in a peaceful revolution, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi says. Ebadi made the prediction as a tenuous ceasefire appeared to be holding.
But the conflict has been devastating in Iran, with the Human Rights Activist News Agency putting the Iranian death toll at more than 1,000. Thousands more were wounded in the intense missile attacks.
Hundreds of Iranians have been detained on political and security charges as the government works to retain its grip on power. Ebadi, a lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work defending human rights, has been a staunch critic of the Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment that has ruled Iran since 1979.
"The people of Iran and the world saw that and realized what a paper tiger this administration is," Ebadi told Reuters in an interview in London, where she has lived in self-imposed exile since 2009.
Deadly Israel-Iran conflict is 'over': Trump declares at NATO: Live updates
What nuclear capability does Iran have?
The U.S. intelligence community has been consistent: It does not believe Iran has been building a nuclear weapon. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said as much when she testified to Congress about Iran's nuclear program in March.
U.S. spy agencies, Gabbard said, 'continue to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003."
Trump and Netanyahu dismissed that assessment. Trump has doubted U.S. intelligence agencies before − for example, over who was responsible for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi (it was Saudi Arabia). Netanyahu, meanwhile, has been talking about Iran's existential nuclear threat to Israel for as along as he's been in the public eye.
Still, U.S. intelligence agencies, Trump, Netanyahu and the United Nations' nuclear watchdog − the International Atomic Energy Agency − agree on the issue of Iran's uranium.
All believe Iran has developed a large stockpile, and at a sufficiently enriched level, to sustain a nuclear reaction that could be used in a bomb if it decided to. But how quickly Iran could then "sprint to a nuclear weapon," as Gen. Michael E. Kurilla put it on June 10, is also a matter of dispute, and estimates range from one week to one year.
−Kim Hjelmgaard
Why did the US strike Iran nuke facilities?
Trump ordered the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities − Operation Midnight Hammer − effectively joining a war that Israel started on June 13 when it began bombing Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure. Israel said it helped the U.S. coordinate and plan the strikes.
Trump said all three sites were "totally obliterated." A Pentagon assessment was less definitive, and Iran says its nuclear program will hardly skip a beat. The actual damage and the impact on Iran's program could become more clear in coming days.
Contributing: Reuters
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