WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump met for more than two hours behind closed doors with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday and said he\u2019d insisted that negotiations with Iran continue as the U.S. pushes for a nuclear deal with Tehran<\/p>\n
Netanyahu entered the White House out of the view of reporters and left without issuing a statement on what was said. But Trump, in a subsequent post on his social media site, called it \u201ca very good meeting\u201d but said \u201cthere was nothing definitive reached, other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIf it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cIf it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cLast time Iran decided that they were better off not making a Deal\u201d and were hit by U.S. strikes. <\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
The visit from Netanyahu \u2014 their seventh meeting in Trump\u2019s second term \u2014 comes as both Tehran and Washington are projecting cautious optimism after holding indirect talks in Oman<\/a> on Friday about how, once again, to approach negotiations over Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n Trump said in a Tuesday interview with Fox Business Network\u2019s Larry Kudlow. \u201cI think they\u2019d be foolish if they didn\u2019t. We took out their nuclear power last time, and we\u2019ll have to see if we take out more this time.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cIt\u2019s got to be a good deal. No nuclear weapons, no missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n Netanyahu pushes for more in Iran talks<\/p>\n Netanyahu\u2019s office says he wants those talks to include limits on Iran\u2019s ballistic missile program and support for militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n \u201cI will present to the president our outlook regarding the principles of these negotiations \u2014 the essential principles which, in my opinion, are important not only to Israel, but to everyone around the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East,\u201d Netanyahu said Tuesday before leaving Israel.<\/p>\n It remains unclear how much influence Netanyahu will have over Trump\u2019s approach toward Iran. Trump initially threatened to take military action over Iran\u2019s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests<\/a> in January, then shifted to a pressure campaign in recent weeks to try to get Tehran to make a deal over its nuclear program<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iran is still reeling from the 12-day war with Israel<\/a> in June. The devastating series of airstrikes, including the U.S. bombing several Iranian nuclear sites<\/a>, killed nearly 1,000 people in Iran and almost 40 in Israel. <\/p>\n Trump, at the time, said the U.S. action had \u201cobliterated\u201d Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities, though the amount of damage remains unclear. Satellite photos of nuclear sites<\/a> have recently captured activity, prompting concern that Iran could be attempting to salvage or assess damage at the sites. <\/p>\n Israel has long called for Iran to cease all uranium enrichment, dial back its ballistic missile program and cut ties to militant groups across the region. Iran has always rejected those demands, saying it would only accept some limits on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. <\/p>\n Washington has built up military forces in the region<\/a>, sending an aircraft carrier, guided-missile destroyers, air defense assets and more to supplement its presence. Arab and Islamic countries, including Turkey and Qatar, have been urging both sides to show restraint, warning that any strike or retaliation could have destabilizing consequences for a region already strained by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.<\/p>\n Gaza is also a topic<\/p>\n In his post, Trump added that he and Netanyahu had \u201calso discussed the tremendous progress being made in Gaza, and the Region in general.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump plans to hold the first meeting next week of his Board of Peace<\/a>, which was initially framed to oversee future steps of the U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire plan but has taken shape with Trump\u2019s ambitions of resolving other global crises.<\/p>\n Earlier Wednesday, Netanyahu met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Blair House, across the street from the White House. The prime minister signed to be part of the board, which could indicate he might skip its first official meeting. <\/p>\n On Iran, Trump said Friday that his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner had \u201cvery good\u201d talks and more were planned this week. But the Republican president kept up the pressure, warning that if Iran did not make a deal over its nuclear program, \u201cthe consequences are very steep.\u201d<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, made similar comments, saying there will be consultations on \u201cnext steps.\u201d He also said the level of mistrust between the two longtime adversaries remains a \u201cserious challenge facing the negotiations.\u201d <\/p>\n He signaled that Iran would stick to its position that it must be able to enrich uranium \u2014 a major point of contention with Trump.<\/p>\n Netanyahu met with Witkoff and Kushner shortly after arriving in Washington on Tuesday evening and they gave him an update on the talks held with Iran in Oman, the prime minister\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n Araghchi said in November that Iran was no longer enriching uranium<\/a> due to the damage from last year\u2019s war. <\/p>\n Before the war, Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity,<\/a> a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had said Iran was the only country in the world to enrich to that level that was not armed with the bomb.<\/p>\n Iran has been refusing requests by the IAEA to inspect the sites bombed in the June war. Even before that, Iran has restricted IAEA inspections since Trump\u2019s decision in 2018<\/a> to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from Iran\u2019s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers<\/a>.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Amiri reported from New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump met for more than two hours behind closed doors with Israeli Prime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7589,6740,23,1927,5620,1930,12,793,5617,158238,801,1570,803,1569,48658,215701,643,1575,3,111,200479,17569,21,19,22,20,25,24,964,800,965],"class_list":["post-462751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","tag-abbas-araghchi","tag-america","tag-ap-top-news","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-diplomacy","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-hamas","tag-hezbollah","tag-iran","tag-iran-government","tag-israel","tag-israel-government","tag-jared-kushner","tag-larry-kudlow","tag-marco-rubio","tag-mideast-wars","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-steve-witkoff","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}