U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would likely seek a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear ambitions at talks next week and credited U.S. strikes on Iran with bringing a swift end to the war between Israel and Tehran.<\/p>\n
Trump said his decision to unleash huge bunker-busting bombs in Sunday\u2019s attack had devastated Iran\u2019s nuclear program and called the outcome \u201ca victory for everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very severe. It was obliteration,\u201d he said, shrugging off an initial assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency that Iran\u2019s path to building a nuclear weapon may have been set back only by months.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, anxious Iranians and Israelis sought to resume normal life after 12 days of the most intense confrontation ever between the two foes and a ceasefire that took effect Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Speaking in The Hague where he attended a NATO summit on Wednesday, Trump said he did not see Iran again engaging in nuclear weapons development. Tehran has for decades denied accusations by Western leaders that it is seeking nuclear arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement. I don\u2019t know. To me, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that necessary,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover,\u201d he said, referring to Western accusations that Iran has been enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade purity.<\/p>\n
Later on Wednesday, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that the U.S. air strikes had \u201cseverely damaged\u201d Iran\u2019s nuclear program, but he stopped short of declaring that the program had been destroyed.<\/p>\n
The agency confirmed a \u201cbody of credible evidence\u201d that several key Iranian facilities were destroyed and would take years to rebuild, he said.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s nuclear agency assessed the strikes had \u201cset back Iran\u2019s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years\u201d. The White House also circulated the Israeli assessment, although Trump said he was not relying on Israeli intelligence.<\/p>\n
Trump said he was confident Tehran would pursue a diplomatic path towards reconciliation. The president gave no details on the discussions next week such as the venue and participants.<\/p>\n
If Iran tried to rebuild its nuclear programme, \u201cwe won\u2019t let that happen. Number one, militarily we won\u2019t,\u201d he said, adding that he thought \u201cwe\u2019ll end up having something of a relationship with Iran\u201d to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n
The head of the U.N.\u2019s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, dismissed what he called the \u201chourglass approach\u201d of assessing damage to Iran\u2019s nuclear programme in terms of months needed to rebuild as besides the point for an issue that needed a long-term solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn any case, the technological knowledge is there and the industrial capacity is there. That, no one can deny. So we need to work together with them,\u201d he said. His priority was returning international inspectors to Iranian nuclear sites, which he said was the only way to find out precisely what state they were in.<\/p>\n
Iran President hints at Domestic Reforms<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s bombing campaign, launched with a surprise attack on June 13, wiped out the top echelon of Iran\u2019s military leadership and killed leading nuclear scientists. Iran responded with missiles that pierced Israel\u2019s defences in large numbers for the first time.<\/p>\n
Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed and nearly 5,000 injured in Iran, where the extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed because of tight restrictions on media. Twenty-eight people were killed in Israel.<\/p>\n
Israel claimed to have achieved its goals of destroying Iran\u2019s nuclear sites and missiles; Iran claimed to have forced the end of the war by penetrating Israeli defences.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s demonstration that it could target Iran\u2019s senior leadership seemingly at will posed perhaps the biggest challenge yet for Iran\u2019s clerical rulers, at a critical juncture when they must find a successor for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 86 and in power for 36 years.<\/p>\n
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate elected last year in a challenge to years of dominance by hardliners, said it could result in reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis war and the empathy that it fostered between the people and officials is an opportunity to change the outlook of management and the behaviour of officials so that they can create unity,\u201d he said in a statement carried by state media.<\/p>\n
Still, Iran\u2019s authorities moved swiftly to demonstrate their control. The judiciary announced the execution of three men on Wednesday convicted of collaborating with Israel\u2019s Mossad spy agency and smuggling equipment used in an assassination.<\/p>\n
Iran had arrested 700 people accused of ties with Israel during the conflict, the state-affiliated Nournews reported.<\/p>\n
During the war, both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump publicly suggested that it could end with the toppling of Iran\u2019s entire system of clerical rule, established in its 1979 revolution.<\/p>\n
But after the ceasefire, Trump said he did not want to see \u201cregime change\u201d in Iran, which he said would bring chaos at a time when he wanted the situation to settle down.<\/p>\n
Relief, Apprehension, Exhaustion<\/p>\n
In both Iran and Israel, residents expressed relief at the end of the fighting, but also apprehension.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came back after the ceasefire was announced. People are relieved that the war has stopped, but there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty about what comes next,\u201d said Farah, 67, who returned to Tehran from nearby Lavasan, where she had fled to escape Israeli bombing.<\/p>\n
In Tel Aviv, Rony Hoter-Ishay Meyer, 38, said the war\u2019s end brought mixed emotions: relief that children could return to school and normal life resume, but exhaustion from the stress.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose past two weeks were catastrophic in Israel, and we are very much exhausted and we need to get back to our normal energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: Reuters
\n–Agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would likely seek a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear ambitions at talks next week and credited U.S. strikes on Iran with bringing a swift end to the war between Israel and Tehran. Trump said his decision to unleash huge bunker-busting bombs in Sunday\u2019s attack had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n