{"id":433690,"date":"2026-02-19T07:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433690\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:02:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:02:07","slug":"white-house-says-iran-would-be-wise-to-make-deal-as-us-ramps-up-military-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/433690\/","title":{"rendered":"White House says Iran would be &#8216;wise&#8217; to make deal, as US ramps up military presence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Trump had not yet made a final decision about whether to attack and ongoing conversations were described as fluid, sources have told to the BBC&#8217;s US partner CBS News.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday there were &#8220;many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She referred to US strikes in June, adding: &#8220;Iran would be very wise to make a deal with President Trump and with his administration.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Although no breakthrough seemed to have emerged from Tuesday&#8217;s indirect talks in Geneva, both sides indicated that there had been steps in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iran said an understanding had been reached with the US on the main &#8220;guiding principles&#8221; that will frame efforts to resolve the dispute around Tehran&#8217;s nuclear programme. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added that work still needed to be done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The US said &#8220;progress was made&#8221; and Badr Albusaidi, the foreign minister of Oman, which is mediating the talks, said the negotiations &#8220;concluded with good progress&#8221; on common aims and technical issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Asked about the Geneva negotiations, the White House press secretary said that Washington and Tehran were still &#8220;far apart&#8221; on some key issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think you heard from the administration and the state department yesterday that there was a little bit of progress made, but we&#8217;re still very far apart on some issues,&#8221; Leavitt said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I believe the Iranians are expected to come back to us with some more detail in the next couple of weeks, and so the president will continue to watch how this plays out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Leavitt declined to say whether Israel would be involved in the US decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Earlier in the week, Iran said it had reached an understanding with the US on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cwyknjnd706o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">main &#8220;guiding principles&#8221;<\/a> to resolve their dispute over Tehran&#8217;s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iran has said it wants to focus discussions on its nuclear programme and the potential lifting of economic sanctions, while Washington indicated previously it wanted Iran&#8217;s missile development to be part of any talks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The US and its European allies suspect that Iran is moving towards the development of a nuclear weapon, something that Tehran has always denied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trump had not yet made a final decision about whether to attack and ongoing conversations were described as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-433690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}