TEHRAN, Iran (AP) \u2014 Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday said his country\u2019s answer to an attack would be harsh, which appeared to be in response to a warning by U.S. President Donald Trump over reconstruction of Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnswer of Islamic Republic of Iran to any cruel aggression will be harsh and discouraging,\u201d Pezeshkian said on the social media platform X. <\/p>\n
Pezeshkian did not elaborate, but his statement came a day after Trump suggested the U.S. could carry out military strikes if Iran attempts to reconstitute its nuclear program. Trump made the comment during wide-ranging talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I hear that Iran is trying to build up again,\u201d Trump said during a news conference with Netanyahu after their meeting. \u201cAnd if they are, we\u2019re going to have to knock them down. We\u2019ll knock them down. We\u2019ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that\u2019s not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two leaders discussed the possibility of renewed military action against Tehran months after a 12-day air war in June that killed nearly 1,100 Iranians including senior military commanders and scientists. Iran\u2019s retaliatory missile barrage killed 28 people in Israel.<\/p>\n
Trump suggested Monday that he could order another U.S. strike against Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s confirmed, they know the consequences, and the consequences will be very powerful, maybe more powerful than the last time,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Pezeshkian said Saturday that tensions between the sides already had risen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in a full-scale war with the U.S., Israel and Europe; they don\u2019t want our country to remain stable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Iran has insisted it is no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program. <\/p>\n
U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency assessed Iran last had an organized nuclear weapons program in 2003, though Tehran had been enriching uranium up to 60%, which is a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEHRAN, Iran (AP) \u2014 Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday said his country\u2019s answer to an attack would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[107316,107317,21489,85,46,43],"class_list":["post-211430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-ap-politics","tag-ap-world-news","tag-associated-press","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}