US President Donals Trump Trump raised doubts on Monday about whether he would follow through on a threatened resumption of military strikes against Iran and said a deal with Tehran could happen.
Trump in recent weeks had hinted about renewing attacks on Iran after the US midterm elections on Tuesday. But after a speech at the Washington Reflecting Pool on Monday, he indicated he might be thinking otherwise.
Asked by reporters if he was considering striking Iran after the midterms, Trump replied "no."
The Iran war is a leading cause of high gasoline prices that are weighing on voters, and Trump is under pressure to end the conflict.
Iranian negotiators were in Doha on Sunday for a third consecutive day of talks with Qatari mediators aimed at pushing for a deal to end the war. Trump said on Monday he believed Iran wanted to make a deal and that such an agreement "could happen."
US Vice President JD Vance reported that there had been "a number of good conversations with the Iranians."
"Look, the president and I both feel pretty good about the prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement. We're going to keep on working at it," he said.
Trump stressed his bottom-line demand that Iran not possess a nuclear weapon.
"We're not going to allow Iran ever to have a nuclear weapon, and they understand that. They've understood that, and they've said it even recently," Trump said.
"If we allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon, this country could never function in the same way. The whole world would be a different place," he said.
He insisted that the operation was not actually a war because "we've done very little fighting" recently after sweeping strikes months ago in which some Iranian leaders were killed.
"We wiped out their leaders, first level of leaders, the second level of leaders, and they've asked us, please stop doing that, and we will."
Trump talked about Iran in a speech that was billed as his closing argument for voters ahead of US midterm elections on Tuesday.
Trump, Netanyahu discuss possible resumption of strikes
Trump spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday as Washington prepared for a possible resumption of military strikes against Iran, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The call came days after Trump consulted senior US military commanders at the White House about options for restarting major combat operations, according to the WSJ.
Sources describe call as 'tough, direct'
Axios also reported that Netanyahu had pressed Trump to resume strikes against Iran immediately after Tuesday's US midterm elections, while the US president preferred to allow diplomatic negotiations with Tehran to continue for the time being, Axios reported, citing one Israeli and one US source.
The Israeli source described the call as "tough" while the US source characterized it as “direct.” The White House and Netanyahu's office declined to comment on the call, Axios reported.
Trump said on Sunday that he had held a “very good” call with Netanyahu the previous day and confirmed that the two had discussed Iran, without providing further details.
The US president also said negotiations with Iran were progressing but questioned Tehran's reliability, saying the Islamic Republic had previously reached agreements before backing away from them.
Trump added that Washington still needed to address “one or two” remaining sites in Iran, including the suspected nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain, and said the US could strike them within minutes.
"We can do that in 10 minutes. We have that planned. You can look at Pickaxe Mountain. We need to take care of that. We can do that very quickly," the president told reporters on Sunday.
Netanyahu's reported push for renewed military action came as the Trump administration continued to pursue negotiations with Tehran. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that Trump would "prefer to solve it diplomatically," Rubio said, adding that Trump has “incredible confidence” in military action if that is needed.
Follow us on GoogleSource: The Jerusalem Post · REUTERS, ASHER SMITH
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