THE HAGUE: US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will begin talks with Iran following the recently agreed ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
Speaking at the NATO summit in The Hague, Trump said, “We’re going to talk to them next week. We may sign an agreement. I don’t know. To me, I don’t think that’s necessary.” He added that he might seek assurances from Iran that it won’t pursue nuclear weapons, though he believes Iran is not moving in that direction: “They’ve had it.”
Reflecting on the end of the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, Trump declared, “We think it’s over. I don’t think they’re going to be going back at each other.” He described both nations as “tired and exhausted” from the intense and violent fighting.
“They fought very hard, and they were both satisfied to go home,” he said, though he acknowledged the possibility of future flare-ups.
Commenting on the Iranian missile strike on the US base in Qatar, Trump confirmed that all 14 missiles were intercepted.
“They were very nice. They gave us warning. They said, ‘We’re going to shoot them. Is 1 p.m. okay?’” he added, noting that the base was evacuated in time except for the gunners.
TRUMP PRAISES FIELD MARSHAL ASIM MUNIR
During the conversation, the US President also said that Field Marshal Asim Munir is a remarkable person and an inspiring personality, and that he had visited him at his office.
During the press conference, he reiterated that it was the US that ended the war between Pakistan and India.
He emphasised that both countries are major nuclear powers and stated that he told both India and Pakistan to focus on trade.
TRUMP SAYS HE WILL SPEAK TO PUTIN SOON ABOUT ENDING UKRAINE WAR
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday after talks with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that he is considering sending more Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine to help Kyiv fend off Russian attacks.
Trump said the anti-missile missiles are “very hard to get” but that “we are going to see if we can make some of them available.”
Trump, at a press conference after attending the annual NATO summit, said Zelensky would like to end the war. Trump said he will speak to Putin about it soon.
“Look, Vladimir Putin really has to end that war,” Trump said.
ZELENSKYY MEETING
Trump also spoke about his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing it as cordial. “It was very nice, actually. We had little rough times, but he couldn’t have been nicer,” he said. While a ceasefire was not discussed, Trump said he plans to speak with Putin to explore ways to end the conflict.
“They do want to have the anti-missile missiles, as they call them ‘The Patriots’, and we’re going to see if we can make some available,” Trump said of Ukraine’s request for the Patriot missile systems equipment.
“You know, they’re very hard to get. We need them too. We were supplying them to Israel and, they’re very effective, 100% effective,” Trump added.
The Patriot, which stands for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target, is a theater-wide surface-to-air missile defense system built by Raytheon.
It is considered one of the most advanced air defense systems in the U.S. arsenal.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday he had discussed a ceasefire in Ukraine with US leader Donald Trump on the sidelines of NATO’s summit in The Hague.
Zelensky said on social media that the meeting was “long and substantive” adding: “We discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace. We spoke about how to protect our people.”
TRUMP SAYS WILL MAKE SPAIN ‘PAY’ ON TRADE FOR RESISTING NATO SPENDING HIKE
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to punish Spain on trade over Madrid’s resistance to commit to NATO’s new headline defence spending target of five percent of GDP.
“They want a little bit of a free ride, but they’ll have to pay it back to us on trade, because I’m not going to let that happen. It’s unfair,” Trump told journalists at the end of NATO’s Hague summit.
TREMENDOUS THINGS ACCOMPLISHED AT NATO SUMMIT
Highlighting outcomes of the NATO summit, Trump said a major achievement was convincing allies to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP—something he claimed “no one thought possible.”
He praised this as a “monumental win” for the US, which he said had been bearing more than its fair share. He emphasized that the additional funding should be directed toward military hardware, and that Europe taking more responsibility for its own security could help prevent future conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine war.
TRUMP COMPARES US IRAN STRIKE TO HIROSHIMA
Earlier, US President Donald Trump compared the impact of American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to the end of World War Two on Wednesday, arguing that the damage was severe even though available intelligence reports were inconclusive.
His comments followed reports by Reuters and other media outlets on Tuesday revealing that the US Defense Intelligence Agency had assessed that the strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear program by just a few months, despite Trump and administration officials saying it had been obliterated.
“The intelligence was … very inconclusive,” Trump told reporters while meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte ahead of a summit in The Hague.
“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know’. It was very severe. It was obliteration,” Trump added.
SUCCESS OF IRAN STRIKES CRUCIAL FOR TRUMP
Trump has an uneasy relationship with the US intelligence community, and the success of the strikes is politically critical to him.
His right-leaning supporters had argued loudly beforehand that such military intervention was inconsistent with Trump’s domestic-focused “Make America Great Again” agenda and his promise to avoid foreign entanglements.
Trump has countered by insisting that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon – a line that an accurate, decisive attack would support.
Trump said the US strikes were responsible for ending the war between Israel and Iran and compared them to the United States’ use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which brought an end to World War Two in 1945.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended the war,” Trump said.
