Trump hints at possible meeting with Iran to ease strains

On July 3, US President Donald Trump indicated that he is open to meeting with Iranian representatives if required, amid ongoing tensions between the two countries.

Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews before heading to a rally in Iowa, Trump said, "Iran does want to speak, and I think they'd like to speak to me, and it's time that they do," Caliber.Az reports per foreign media.

He added, "We're not looking to hurt them. We're looking to let them be a country again."

In recent development, the Pentagon has confirmed that recent US military strikes have set back Iran’s nuclear programme by one to two years, an assessment following President Donald Trump’s claims that the programme was “obliterated”.

Defence Department spokesperson Sean Parnell stated on Wednesday that the three Iranian nuclear sites targeted by Washington were destroyed, echoing the president’s comments. He described the strikes as a “bold operation”.

“We have degraded their programme by one to two years at least,” Parnell told reporters. “Intel assessments inside the department assess that.”

Since deploying a squadron of B-2 stealth bombers to Iran on 21 June, Trump has strongly refuted any reports suggesting the attacks failed to damage Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

He has insisted that Iran’s nuclear programme has been “obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before”.

However, an earlier US intelligence report, leaked last month, indicated the strikes did not eliminate critical parts of the programme and only delayed progress by several months.

By Aghakazim Guliyev