Trump says US and Iranian officials will talk next week with war over

THE HAGUE Netherlands AP President Donald Trump says U S and Iranian agents will talk next week continuing a dialogue that was interrupted by the current war between Israel and Tehran I ll tell you what we re going to talk with them next week with Iran We may sign an agreement I don t know Trump communicated a press conference during the NATO summit in the Netherlands Trump reported he wasn t particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran insisting that U S strikes had destroyed its nuclear initiative The way I look at it they fought the war is done he noted THIS IS A LATEST NEWS UPDATE AP s earlier story follows below DUBAI United Arab Emirates AP The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran appeared to be holding on Wednesday after a rocky start giving rise to cautious hope for longer-term peace even as Tehran insisted it will not give up its nuclear initiative U S President Donald Trump who helped negotiate the ceasefire that took hold on Tuesday the th day of the war narrated reporters at a NATO summit it was going very well adding that Iran was not going to have a bomb and they re not going to enrich Iran has insisted however that it will not give up its nuclear plan In a vote underscoring the tough path ahead its parliament agreed to fast-track a proposal that would effectively stop the country s cooperation with the International Atomic Resource Agency the U N watchdog that has monitored the campaign for years Ahead of the vote Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf criticized the IAEA for having refused to even pretend to condemn the attack on Iran s nuclear facilities that the United States carried out on Sunday For this reason the Atomic Potency Organization of Iran will suspend cooperation with the IAEA until safety of nuclear facilities is ensured and Iran s peaceful nuclear project will move forward at a faster pace Qalibaf communicated lawmakers IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi announced he had already written to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of their nuclear facilities Among other things Iran proposes to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the U S strikes and Grossi reported his inspectors need to re-assess the country s stockpiles We need to return he disclosed We need to engage French President Emmanuel Macron whose country was part of the deal with Iran that restricted its nuclear campaign but began unraveling after Trump pulled the U S out in his first term commented he hoped Tehran would come back to the table Iran has long maintained that its nuclear effort was peaceful and U S intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb However Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could rapidly assemble a nuclear weapon Israel is widely held to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons which it has never acknowledged Questions over effectiveness of the US strikes The Israel Atomic Potential Commission reported its assessment was that the U S and Israeli strikes have set back Iran s ability to develop nuclear weapons by numerous years It did not give evidence to back up its claim The U S strikes hit three Iranian nuclear sites which Trump disclosed thoroughly and fully obliterated the country s nuclear campaign At the NATO summit when requested about a U S intelligence summary that ascertained Iran s nuclear initiative has been set back only a sparse months Trump scoffed and declared it would at least take years to rebuild Iran s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei verified that the strikes by U S B- bombers using bunker-buster bombs had caused essential damage Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged that s for sure he stated Al Jazeera on Wednesday while refusing to go into detail He seemed to suggest Iran might not shut out IAEA inspectors for good noting that the bill before parliament only talks of suspending work with the agency not ending it He also insisted Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear resource plan Iran is determined to preserve that right under any circumstances he declared Trump s special envoy to the Mideast Steve Witkoff commented on Fox News late on Tuesday that Israel and the U S had achieved their objective of the total destruction of the enrichment maximum in Iran and Iran s prerequisite for talks that Israel end its campaign had been fulfilled The proof is in the pudding he mentioned No one s shooting at each other It s over Grossi disclosed he could not speculate on how bad the damage was but that Iran s nuclear capabilities were well known The technical knowledge is there and the industrial quota is there he reported That no one can deny so we need to work together with them Hopes for a long-term peace agreement An Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations mentioned the ceasefire agreement with Iran amounted to quiet for quiet with no further understandings about Iran s nuclear venture going ahead In the Fox News interview Witkoff declared Trump is now looking to land a comprehensive peace agreement that goes beyond even the ceasefire We re already talking to each other not just directly but also through interlocutors Witkoff stated adding that the conversations were promising and we re hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement However Baghaei the Iranian spokesman noted Washington had torpedoed diplomacy with its attacks on nuclear sites and that while Iran in principle was inevitably open to talks national safeguard was the priority We have to make sure whether the other parties are really serious when they re talking about diplomacy or is it again part of their tactics to make more problems for the region and for my country he stated China a close Iranian partner and major buyer of Iranian oil stated it hoped a lasting and effective ceasefire can be achieved so as to promote peace and stability in the region China has blamed Israel for starting the war and destabilizing the region Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun reported reporters that China is willing to inject positive factors to safeguard peace and stability in the Middle East Grossi declared Iran and the international society should seize the opportunity of the ceasefire for a long-term diplomatic remedy Out of the bad things that military conflict brings there s also now a possibility an opening he commented We shouldn t miss that opportunity Iran executes more prisoners on spying claims During the war with Israel Iran executed several prisoners accused of spying for Israel sparking fears from activists that it could conduct a wave of executions after the conflict ends It hanged three more prisoners on spying charges on Wednesday bringing the total number of executions for espionage to six since June Iran identified the three as Azad Shojaei Edris Aali and Iraqi national Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul The hangings took place at Urmia Prison in West Azerbaijan Iran s the greater part northwestern province State-run IRNA cited Iran s judiciary for the news saying the men had been accused of bringing assassination equipment into the country During the -day war at least people were killed in Israel and more than wounded according to authorities Tehran on Tuesday put the death toll in Iran at with people wounded The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group distributed figures Wednesday suggesting Israeli strikes on Iran had killed at least and wounded The group which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran reported of those killed were civilians and were guard forces During the war Israeli airstrikes also targeted Iran s top military leadership and other sites associated with its ruling theocracy With the ceasefire Iranians are trying to return to their normal lives State media described heavy traffic around the Caspian Sea and other rural areas outside of the capital Tehran as people began returning to the city