Iran-Israel ceasefire holding, Trump envoy says talks with Iran ‘promising’
WASHINGTON/TEL AVIV/ISTANBUL: The ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump between Iran and Israel appeared to be holding on Wednesday a day after both countries signalled that their air war had ended, at least for now.
Each side claimed victory on Tuesday after 12 days of war, which the U.S. joined with airstrikes in support of Israel to take out Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said late on Tuesday that talks between the United States and Iran were “promising” and that Washington was hopeful for a long-term peace deal.
“We are already talking to each other, not just directly but also through interlocutors,” Witkoff said in an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” show. “We are hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran.”
Israel’s bombing campaign, launched with a surprise attack on June 13, wiped out the top echelon of Iran’s military leadership, killed its leading nuclear scientists and targeted nuclear sites and missiles. Iran responded with missiles that pierced Israel’s defences in large numbers for the first time.
Iranian authorities said 610 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.
The United States joined two days before the end of the war, by dropping huge bunker-busting bombs on nuclear sites, including the most sensitive buried under a mountain.
Trump said it had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme, making it impossible for Iran to make an atomic bomb, effectively sweeping the main issue of contention at talks off the table. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons.
But there was uncertainty over the extent to which Iran’s nuclear programme had in fact been damaged. An initial report by the U.S. government’s Defense Intelligence Agency suggested the damage may have been less severe than Trump suggested, according to three people familiar with the matter.
One of the sources said Iran’s enriched uranium stocks had not been eliminated, and its nuclear programme may have been set back only a month or two. The White House said the intelligence assessment was “flat out wrong”.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Politico: “The bottom line is, they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action.”
Iran’s parliament approved a bill on Wednesday to suspend cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, state-affiliated news outlet Nournews reported, adding that such a move would require approval of the top security body.
Cooperating with the IAEA is a requirement under the non-proliferation treaty that gives Iran access to nuclear technology as long as it refrains from pursuing a weapon.