Latest news with #nuclearweapon
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
US top diplomat Rubio discussed Israel-Iran war with key partners
By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met British foreign minister David Lammy on Thursday and held separate calls with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to discuss the war between U.S. ally Israel and its regional rival Iran. KEY QUOTES The U.S. State Department said that Rubio and the foreign ministers agreed that "Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon." Lammy said the same on X while adding that the situation in the Middle East "remained perilous" and a "window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution." WHY IT'S IMPORTANT The air war between Iran and Israel - which began on June 13 when Israel attacked Iran - has raised alarms in a region that was already on edge since the start of Israel's military assault on Gaza in October 2023. President Donald Trump will decide in the next two weeks whether the U.S. will get involved in the war, the White House said on Thursday. Trump has kept the world guessing on his plans, veering from proposing a swift diplomatic solution to suggesting Washington might join the fighting on Israel's side. The White House said late on Thursday that Trump will take part in a national security meeting on Friday morning. CONTEXT Israel, which is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it struck Iran to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons. Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, has retaliated with its own strikes on Israel. Iran is a party to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while Israel is not. Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, the Human Rights Activists News Agency says. Israel says at least two dozen Israeli civilians have died in Iranian attacks. The foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and the European Union were due to meet in Geneva with Iran's foreign minister on Friday to try to de-escalate the conflict.
BBC News
6 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Newshour Israel and Iran threaten escalation of military conflict
Israel and Iran threaten to step up their military confrontation, nearly 48 hours after the Israeli strikes began. Newshour analyses Israel's strategy and assesses how close Iran was to making a nuclear weapon. Also in the programme: two US politicians are shot in Minnesota; and Bangladesh's interim Prime Minister Muhammad Yunus on the ending of aid to his country. (Picture: Missiles launched from Iran are intercepted, as seen from the city of Ashkelon, Israel, June 13, 2025. Credit: Reuters)
Asharq Al-Awsat
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Iran Says it Will Continue Nuclear Talks With the US, Shrugging Off Trump's Threats
Iran's president said his country will continue talks with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program but will not withdraw from its rights because of US threats. 'We are negotiating, and we will negotiate. We are not after war but we do not fear any threat," President Masoud Pezeshkian said during a speech to navy officials broadcast by state television Saturday. 'It is not like if they threaten us we will give up our human right and definite rights,' Pezeshkian said. 'We will not withdraw, we will not easily lose honorable achievements in military, scientific and nuclear' fields and other areas. The negotiations have reached the 'expert' level, meaning the sides are trying to reach agreement on the details of a possible deal. But a major sticking point remains Iran's enrichment of uranium, which Tehran insists it must be allowed to do and the Trump administration increasingly insists Iran must give up. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran's program if a deal isn't reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. Earlier on Friday, Trump said Iran received a proposal during the talks, though he did not elaborate. During his trip to the region this week, Trump at nearly every event insisted Iran could not be allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb, something US intelligence agencies assess Tehran is not actively pursuing, though its program is on the cusp of being able to weaponize nuclear material. Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran's atomic organization, stressed the peaceful nature of the program, saying it is under 'continuous' monitoring by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, state TV reported Saturday. 'No country is monitored by the agency like us,' Eslami said, adding that the agency inspected the country's nuclear facilities more than 450 times in 2024. 'Something about 25% of all the agency inspections' in the year. Meanwhile, Israel routinely has threatened to strike Iran's nuclear facilities if it feels threatened, further complicating tensions in the Mideast already spiked by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. In his first reaction to Trump's regional visit, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Trump wasn't truthful when he made claims about creating peace through power. 'Trump said that he wanted to use power for peace, he lied. He and the US administration used power for massacre in Gaza, for waging wars in any place they could,' Khamenei said Saturday during a meeting with teachers broadcast on state television. The US has provided Israel with 10-ton bombs to 'drop on Gaza children, hospitals, houses of people in Lebanon and anywhere else when they can," Khamenei said. Khamenei, who has the final say on all Iranian state matters, reiterated his traditional stance against Israel. 'Definitely, the Zionist regime is the spot of corruption, war, rifts. The Zionist regime that is lethal, dangerous, cancerous tumor should be certainly eradicated, and it will be," he said, adding that the US has imposed a pattern on Arab nations under which they cannot endeavor without US support. 'Surely this model has failed. With efforts of the regional nations, the US should leave the region, and it will leave," Khamenei said. Iran has long considered the US military presence in the region as a threat on its doorstep, especially after Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions.
