President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that US and Iranian officials are expected to engage in talk next week, continuing a dialogue that was interrupted by the recent war between Israel and Tehran.
“I’ll tell you what, we’re going to talk with them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement, I don’t know," Trump told a press conference during the NATO summit in the Netherlands.
Trump said he wasn't particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, insisting that US strikes had destroyed its nuclear program, reports AP.
“The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done,” he said.
Iran has not acknowledged any talks taking place next week, though US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff has said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries.
The fragile ceasefire gave rise to cautious hope for longer-term peace even as Tehran insisted it will not give up its nuclear program.
Trump, who helped negotiate the ceasefire that took hold on Tuesday, the 12th day of the war, earlier told reporters at a NATO summit it was going “very well," adding that Iran was "not going to have a bomb and they’re not going to enrich."
Iran has insisted, however, that it will not give up its nuclear program. In a vote underscoring the tough path ahead, its parliament agreed to fast-track a proposal that would effectively stop the country’s cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog that has monitored the program for years.
Ahead of the vote, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf criticized the IAEA for having “refused to even pretend to condemn the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities” that the United States carried out on Sunday.
“For this reason, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will suspend cooperation with the IAEA until security of nuclear facilities is ensured, and Iran’s peaceful nuclear program will move forward at a faster pace," Qalibaf told lawmakers.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said he had already written to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of their nuclear facilities.
Among other things, Iran claims to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the US strikes, and Grossi said his inspectors need to re-assess the country’s stockpiles.
“We need to return,” he said. “We need to engage.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country was part of the 2015 deal with Iran that restricted its nuclear program but began unraveling after Trump pulled the US out in his first term, said he hoped Tehran would come back to the table.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program was peaceful, and US intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.
Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons, which it has never acknowledged.
MSH
