By David E. Sanger, Tyler Pager, Adam Rasgon, Michael D. Shear and Francesca Regalado
President Trump said on Wednesday that the United States and Iran would hold talks “next week,” while also casting doubt on the need to iron out a deal with Tehran about its nuclear program.
As the cease-fire deal between Israel and Iran entered its second day, Mr. Trump told reporters at a NATO conference that he didn’t “think it was necessary” for the talks to produce an agreement with Iran, presumably to give up its nuclear ambitions. It is unclear what format any new discussions would take. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States was seeking direct talks between the countries.
“I don’t care if I have an agreement or not,” Mr. Trump said. “The only thing we’d be asking for is what we were asking for before, about we want no nuclear.”
Mr. Trump again argued that the American strikes dealt a devastating blow to Tehran’s ambitions, pushing back forcefully against the findings of a preliminary U.S. intelligence report that said the attacks had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a matter of months. Mr. Rubio also stepped in with a more detailed case for why he thought the Iranian program had been set back by years.
Israel sought to bolster that argument, releasing a statement from its atomic energy commission that said the American strike on the reinforced Iranian nuclear site at Fordo “destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.”
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