Putin says Russia, US looking into new nuclear talks https://www.dw.com/en/putin-says-russia-us-looking-into-new-nuclear-talks/a-49416356–
30 June 19, American and Russian diplomats are preparing the ground for possible nuclear disarmament talks, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has said at a G20 summit in Osaka. The two sides suspended the key INF treaty earlier this year.Moscow and Washington are mulling new talks on limiting their nuclear arsenals, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka on Saturday.
Putin was commenting on his meeting with US President Donald Trump the day before, most of which took place behind closed doors.
“We have tasked our respective foreign minister to start lower-level talks on [nuclear disarmament],” Putin said.
The talks, according to Putin’s comments carried by the Russian Interfax news agency, would be related to extending the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which went into force in 2011 after talks between Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama and Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev.
Fears of restarting nuclear race
The New START limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads ready to use on intercontinental missiles and heavy bomber bases to 1,550. The treaty also imposes various other restrictions to US and Russian nuclear capabilities. It is set to expire in 2021.
According to 2019 data provided by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, both the US and Russia currently have about 1,600 deployed strategic nuclear heads at their disposal. Russia has a total of 6,500 nuclear warheads, compared to 6,185 on the US side.
Russia’s Putin has repeatedly warned that the New START expiry date could signal a new nuclear arms race.
INF on the brink
On Saturday, he refused to give a timeline for the talks and said it was “too early to talk about” the likelihood of getting to an agreement.
Putin’s remarks come after the US accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by developing a new missile system.
The document, signed in 1987 between the US and the now defunct Soviet Union, prohibits the possessing and testing of short- and medium-range nuclear weapons.
Both Russia and the US have since suspended their participation in the accord. The US has pledged to pull out of the agreement if Russia is not in compliance by August 2 this year.
July 1, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
politics international, Russia, weapons and war |
Leave a comment
Russia threatens military response to any NATO action over nuclear-ready missile
CNBC, JUN 26 2019 David Reid
- NATO has said Russia’s SSC-8 missile violates terms of a 1987 missile treaty.
- The alliance has said it will act to mitigate the Russian threat.
- Russia has in turn said it would take “countervailing military measures.”
- Moscow has said it will take “countervailing military measures” should NATO fulfil any threat related to Russia’s nuclear-ready cruise missile system.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that Russia must dismantle the short-range system, or the alliance will be forced to respond, adding that NATO-member defense ministers would now look at next steps “in the event that Russia does not comply.”
No detail is yet known over what NATO might do although Stoltenberg said the alliance would not engage in any arms race.
According to the Kremlin-owned news agency TASS, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters Wednesday that NATO’s comments “reek of propaganda” and were falsely attempting to portray NATO’s threat as a “military and political response to Russia’s actions.”
The translation of Ryabkov, provided by TASS, added that Russia would respond to any military action from the 29-nation alliance.
“When these threats begin to materialize into real action, we will have to take countervailing military measures,” he said……… https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/russia-threatens-response-to-nato-over-nuclear-ready-ssc-8-missile.html?recirc=taboolainternal
July 1, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
EUROPE, politics international, Russia, USA, weapons and war |
Leave a comment
NATO says it will act unless Russia destroys nuclear-ready missile, CNBC, JUN 26 2019
KEY POINTS
- NATO has said Russia’s SSC-8 missile violates terms of a 1987 missile treaty.
- The U.S. says it will exit the treaty unless Russia stops their production.
- But Russia has continued to develop and site the missiles within range of Europe.
- NATO said Russia must destroy its short-range nuclear-ready cruise missile system, or the alliance will be forced to respond.
The U.S. has previously said it will quit a decades-old missile treaty with Russia if the latter fails to destroy the missile, labeled the SSC-8 by NATO.
The 1987 INF Treaty between the U.S. and Russia sought to eliminate nuclear and conventional missiles, as well as their launchers, with short ranges (310–620 miles) and intermediate ranges (620–3,420 miles).
NATO has said the SSC-8 violates those terms and that Russia has been deploying the system at locations which could threaten countries across Europe.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia had just five weeks to scrap the system and save the treaty…….. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/nato-says-russia-must-end-nuclear-ready-missile-ssc-program.html
July 1, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
EUROPE, politics international, Russia, USA, weapons and war |
Leave a comment
Acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq The Age, Tony Walker, 1 July 19, Here’s a word of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Unless he wants to risk a smudge on his reputation of the sort that accompanies John Howard to this day: don’t get involved in conflict with Iran beyond limited naval engagement in a Gulf peace-keeping role.
When we read that Canberra is open to joining an international effort to ratchet up pressure on Iran “in consultation with our allies and partners”, this invites disquieting questions.
If Morrison is talking about involvement in a “global coalition”, as described by the hawkish US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, then he might remind himself of what happened when Australia last lent itself to a so-called “Coalition of the Willing”.
That was 17 years ago in 2002 when John Howard – as one of the “three amigos” with Britain’s Tony Blair and Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar – joined George W. Bush in promoting a disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Only World War II, which absorbed one-third of American GDP, or $4 trillion in today’s dollars, has cost more than the Iraq debacle at $1 trillion (a total $2 trillion if Afghanistan is included).
These are the measurable costs in people, materiel and nation building. Incalculable are the ongoing costs of the destabilisation of the entire Middle East, and the empowerment of Iran…..
In a multi-year assignment in the Middle East I reported the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88); the first Gulf War (1990-1991), in which the US and its allies routed the Iraqi military; and the invasion of Iraq (2003). If I learned anything from those experiences it is that wars are easier to start than to finish. …..
Morrison is surrounded by a weak national security team. The national security committee of cabinet does not include one individual with credible security experience. …….
Morrison might remind himself that Canada’s then-prime minister, Jean Chretien, kept his country out of the Iraq war. The sky did not subsequently fall in on Ottawa.
All this is relevant today given that Morrison found himself last week in the presence over dinner of the two most hawkish members of the Trump administration. Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton both advocated air strikes against Iranian targets in retaliation for suspected Iranian attacks on gulf oil facilities before the President, at the 11th hour, called off military action.
Bolton has been an intemperate advocate of regime change in Tehran. In an interview with The Australian newspaper, Pompeo said Australia had a key role in a “global coalition”. What that means is anyone’s guess.
Morrison would be well advised not to be suckered into joining a counter-punch against Iran. His response to requests for any significant Australian military involvement should be emphatically: No. https://www.theage.com.au/world/middle-east/acting-on-iran-has-painful-shades-of-joining-the-us-in-iraq-20190628-p5227h.html
July 1, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA, politics international, weapons and war |
1 Comment
Japan hopes latest Trump-Kim meeting will help get nuclear, abduction talks moving again, Japan Times , 29 June
KYODO, Japan hopes the third meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday will reinvigorate stalled denuclearization talks and help resolve the issue of past abductions of Japanese citizens.
“The meeting could serve as an opportunity for North Korea to come out of its shell,” a senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.
Trump and Kim held talks in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas and agreed to restart denuclearization talks within weeks following the rupture of their last summit in Hanoi in February.
Tokyo is closely monitoring whether the two countries will move forward negotiations on the denuclearization of North Korea and improve their ties, which could help the U.S. government set up a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Kim, as the Japanese leader is hoping for……….https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/30/national/japan-hopes-latest-trump-kim-meeting-will-help-get-nuclear-abduction-talks-moving/#.XRkibT8zbGg
July 1, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Japan, North Korea, politics international, USA |
Leave a comment
Nuclear talks progress ‘not enough’ for Iran to change course, INSTEX payment system now operational, but Iran says needs to be used for oil purchases to be useful. Aljazeera, 29 June 19
Diplomats meeting in Vienna in a bid to save a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers made progress but it was “not enough” to stop Tehran scaling back compliance with the accord, according to the Iranian deputy foreign minister.
Officials from the deal’s remaining signatories – China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Iran – as well as the European Union, held talks in the Austrian capital on Friday after Tehran warned that it would soon breach a limit on the amount of enriched uranium set out in the agreement.
“It was a step forward, but it is still not enough and not meeting Iran’s expectations,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters. “I don’t think the progress made today will be enough to stop our process but the decision will be made in Tehran.”…….https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/nuclear-talks-progress-iran-change-190628160308104.html
June 29, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Iran, politics international |
Leave a comment
The Guardian view of the Osaka G20 summit: bad as he is, Trump is not the only problem, Editorial, Guardian 268 June 19 The climate crisis underlines the need for effective global economic leadership. The US president makes this harder, but so do China and several others.Ever since the G20 of leading global economies was founded, its summits have mostly been convergent occasions, marked by attempts to find common ground and remembered for nothing more unseemly than a bit of jostling among the heads of government to be on the front row of the group photograph. Japan’s prime minister Shinzō Abe clearly takes this traditional view about the G20 summi twhich he will host in Osaka on Friday and Saturday. “We want to make it a meeting that focuses on where we can agree and cooperate rather than highlighting differences,” he said recently.
But there is a balloon-puncturing problem with Mr Abe’s approach, and it answers to the name of Donald Trump. If there is one issue on which this year’s summit clearly ought to be showing global leadership, it is the climate crisis. The subject is indeed on the Osaka agenda but, in spite of efforts by countries including France, there is no prospect of serious or effective action. That is no surprise from a group of nations which almost tripled the subsidies they gave to coal-fired power plants between 2013 and 2017, with China, India and Japan itself leading the way. But it is Mr Trump’s decision to walk away from climate accords and to back fossil fuels that creates the wider permission for these other terrible derelictions.
Mr Trump’s disruptions do not end there. The US president uses these gatherings not to build alliances to solve common problems but to knock his adversaries – and sometimes his supposed allies – off their stride. He is not looking for general agreement, which he thinks is for wimps. He is looking for American advantage over friend and foe. That’s the reason why the summit is already overshadowed by the increasingly serious trade war between the United States and China (Mr Trump will have an all-smiles bilateral with Xi Jinping on Saturday). And it is certainly the reason why Mr Trump has used the run-up to Osaka to have a pop at his hosts, whom he claimed would respond to an attack on the US by watching it “on a Sony television”, attacking India for raising tariffs and then, inventing false figures, berating Germany as a “security freeloader”.
Since Mr Trump’s Friday schedule involves one-on-ones with Mr Abe, India’s Narendra Modi and Germany’s Angela Merkel, it seems these mind games are part of a deliberate strategy of disruption. This is not a novel conclusion. Mr Trump used the same approach before his recent visit to Britain, when he praised Boris Johnson and attacked Sadiq Khan and the Duchess of Sussex. If Mr Johnson becomes prime minister and Britain were to back off from supporting European opposition to the White House’s Iran strategy, Mr Trump would count this a job well done.
Mr Trump’s bullying is also selective. Among the world leaders whom Mr Trump has not attacked in advance – but with whom he will also be meeting in Osaka bilaterals – are Vladimir Putin of Russia, whose country systematically interfered in the 2016 US election, and Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who has just been accused by the United Nations of orchestrating the murder and dismemberment of the opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi……… https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/27/the-guardian-view-of-the-osaka-g20-summit-bad-as-he-is-trump-is-not-the-only-problem
|
|
|
June 29, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change, Japan, politics international |
Leave a comment
Iran Is About To Exceed Uranium Limits. Is The Nuclear Deal Dying? NPR, 26, 2019 , Heard on All Things Considered, GEOFF BRUMFIEL
Iran is on the verge of crossing a key line included in the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other powers in 2015. As soon as Thursday, it’s expected to announce that its uranium stockpiles have exceeded limits set by the deal.
“I think it’s a major bridge for them to go across,” says David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, which monitors Iran’s nuclear program. Albright and other experts believe that breaching the limit could spell the beginning of the end for the nuclear agreement, which the U.S. exited in May 2018.
The nuclear deal is full of numbers and figures, but its purpose is simple: to slow down Iran’s nuclear program. Before the deal, Iran was within a few weeks of getting enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb if it chose to. The deal pushed that timeline back from weeks to about a year.
Under the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran was forced to get rid of lots of low-enriched uranium. Low-enriched uranium is kept at levels far below the 90% level considered suitable for building nuclear weapons. But large quantities of low-enriched uranium can be refined to bomb-grade relatively quickly. So the deal capped Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched material to just 300 kilograms, or 661 lbs.
But that was then. Last year, President Trump pulled out of the deal. Without the economic benefits Iran was promised in exchange for limiting its nuclear program, it has begun going back on the agreement. In May, it announced it would begin accumulating more low-enriched uranium. ……..
European companies had hoped to do business with Iran. But in the face of U.S. sanctions, “We’ve seen those companies have to step back and say, ‘We can’t afford to lose the U.S. market,’ ” Hinderstein says.
Iran is now stepping across one line in the deal at a time, in an effort to pressure European nations to provide promised economic relief. European negotiators are racing to complete a package of humanitarian aid by early July, says Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi with Great Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.
“They are working towards that end goal, to showcase to the Iranians that they are actually working in practical terms to address some of these issues,” Tabrizi says.
If that aid — which includes things like medical supplies — can be delivered without U.S. objection, then it may open the possibility of more economic benefits flowing to Iran. But Tabrizi says it remains to be seen whether it will be enough.
“Iran has made it clear that it needs also to be able to continue to export its oil, to see the incentive of remaining a party of the nuclear deal,” she says.
For now, Hinderstein says, Iran is still about a year away from getting material together for a bomb — should it decide to do so. “We still have some time to work with,” she says.
But with each line that Iran crosses, the timeline shrinks, and the nuclear deal fades further. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/26/736008919/iran-is-about-to-exceed-uranium-limits-is-the-nuclear-deal-dying
June 27, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Iran, politics international |
Leave a comment
Iran says it will never build a nuclear weapon, Minister says Islam forbids such a move as country prepares to breach nuclear deal, Guardian Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor, 26 June 2019
Iran will never pursue a nuclear weapon, its foreign minister has claimed, saying Islam prevented the country from doing so.
Iran has previously said it is ideologically opposed to acquiring nuclear weapons and seeks nuclear power only for civilian purposes. But in the current unpredictable climate it is possible Donald Trump could pick up Javad Zarif’s remarks as a signal to talk.
The White House is pursuing a twin-track strategy of seeking talks while trying to throttle the Iranian economy through sanctions that block trade with Europe and oil sales, and freeze the assets of political and diplomatic leaders.
Iran has said it will breach the uranium enrichment limits set out in the 2015 nuclear deal on Thursday, but that does not imply the country is on the path to building a nuclear weapon…….
The US president again threatened Iran with “obliteration” in a Twitter tirade in which he also accused the country’s leaders of killing 2,000 Americans. …..
The angry tweets came after Iran said the US’s decision to impose sanctionson its supreme leader and other top officials was “idiotic” and had permanently closed the path to diplomacy between Tehran and Washington.
Trump imposed fresh sanctions on Monday against the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and military chiefs, in an unprecedented step designed to increase pressure on Iran after Tehran’s downing of an unmanned American drone. Khamenei is Iran’s utmost authority, who has the last say on all state matters.
Washington said it would also impose sanctions this week on Zarif, who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with the US and other major powers and has spearheaded Iranian diplomacy since.
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, described the White House as “afflicted by a mental disability” and said the sanctions against Khamenei were “outrageous and idiotic”, especially as the 80-year-old cleric has no overseas assets and no plans to ever travel to the US.
Tehran said the US had spent weeks demanding that Iran match America’s diplomacy with its own diplomacy, rather than military responses, but was now trying to immobilise its chief diplomat.
“Imposing useless sanctions on Iran’s supreme leader and the commander of Iran’s diplomacy is the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy,” the foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a tweet on Tuesday. “Trump’s desperate administration is destroying the established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security.”…….. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/25/iran-says-us-sanctions-on-supreme-leader-means-permanent-closure-of-diplomacy
June 27, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Iran, politics international, weapons and war |
Leave a comment
The US and North Korea are in talks to hold a third nuclear summit, according to South Korea’s president, Insider,26 June19
- Officials from North Korea and the United States are holding “informal” talks about a third nuclear summit in the future, South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in said Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported.
-
- The Trump administration has held two summits with North Korea in the past year, the first in Singapore in June 2018 and another in Hanoi this past February, neither of which were able to produce a concrete de-nuclearization deal.
- Trump is scheduled to travel to Seoul, South Korea on Saturday after he attends the G-20 summit in Japan, which could present an opportunity for American and North Korean officials to set plans for a third summit.
- Under the Trump administration, the US has pursued far friendlier relations with North Korea than other nations, with Trump even going as far as to frequently praise North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un……. . https://www.insider.com/us-north-korea-are-in-talks-for-third-nuclear-summit-2019-6
June 27, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
North Korea, politics international, USA |
Leave a comment
Trump’s new Iran sanctions have put airstrikes on hold — but nuclear risks remain
History suggests these dark scenarios cannot be dismissed. Even more critical, available measures to reduce these dangers must not be ignored. June 25, 2019, NBC News THINK, By Bennett Ramberg, Former policy analyst at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs
The Middle East presents a dangerous nexus of nuclear reactors and violence. It remains the only region where foreign powers have attacked their enemies’ nuclear plants. On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order putting in place what he called “hard-hitting” new sanctions on Iran. Should continuing tensions between Tehran and Washington boil over into intense hostilities, one ominous nuclear policy question cannot be ignored: Will the presence of reactors in an enlarged conflict zone open a Pandora’s box to the first radioactive war in history?
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, wrote in a 2015 New York Times opinion piece that Washington needed to aim for “breaking key links in [Iran’s] nuclear fuel cycle” through military action. (And envisioned Israel playing a role.) That military option became moot when the Obama administration signed the Iran deal. Now that Trump has withdrawn from the agreement, however, military action is again an option — as well as serious consequences should any action go forward.
Consider, for example, if the current tensions escalate to the point that Tehran crosses Washington’s red line, as it has threatened, and expands nuclear materials production, openly breaking the deal struck with the Obama administration and its allies. Would the United States decide the time had come to eliminate Iran’s nuclear enrichment and related facilities?
In the powder keg of the Middle East, would Iran’s mullahs or their Hezbollah proxy then seek to make good on longstanding threats to launch reprisal rockets at Israel’s Dimona weapons reactor, releasing radioactive elements? And would such an attack propel Israel to respond in kind by striking Iran’s much larger Bushehr nuclear power plant?
History suggests these dark scenarios cannot be dismissed. Even more critical, available measures to reduce these dangers must not be ignored……..
Today’s Middle East nuclear reactor profile has become more complex, though. Iran now operates one Russian-designed 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant at Bushehr and is building two others. In 2020, a new power reactor is scheduled to go online in the United Arab Emirates, where three others are under construction. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt also now plan power reactors. …..
If a nuclear plant is hit, the results could be radiation hazards never seen in warfare. Several factors complicate risk projections…….
Acknowledging that mutually assured radioactive contamination would result from nuclear reactor attacks should be sobering enough to prompt all across the Middle East to heed the terrible lessons of Chernobyl: Releases of large inventories of radiation into the environment only sow grief that will last generations, benefiting no one. now https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-new-iran-sanctions-have-put-air-strikes-hold-ncna1021056
June 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
MIDDLE EAST, politics international, safety, USA |
Leave a comment
|
Israel will do ‘everything’ to stop Iran going nuclear: Netanyahu https://news.yahoo.com/israel-everything-stop-iran-going-nuclear-netanyahu-161040494.html, 24 June 19 Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday his country will do “everything” to prevent arch-rival Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, during a visit by a senior Russian security official. “Israel will not allow Iran, which calls for our destruction, to entrench on our border; we will do everything to prevent it from attaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said.
He was speaking alongside Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Moscow’s powerful security council, whose visit followed weeks of simmering tensions between Tehran and Washington in the Gulf.
Israel has carried out repeated strikes to prevent Iranian forces becoming embedded in neighbouring Syria, where both Iran and Moscow back the government of President Bashar al-Assad.The Israeli government has vowed never to let Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, believing Israel would be the target.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely for civilian purposes.
Netanyahu has long campaigned against a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, from which the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew last year.
Patrushev did not directly mention the Islamic republic in his comments to the press.“We pay great attention to Israel’s security,” he said.
“To resolve this issue in practice, it is necessary to bring peace and stability to the region, including on Syrian territory.”
Their meeting came a day after Netanyahu hosted US National Security Advisor John Bolton, who shares the Israeli premier’s tough stance on Iran.
Bolton is set to meet Patrushev on Tuesday along with their Israeli counterpart Meir Ben-Shabbat.
Tensions between Washington and Iran have flared after Iranian forces shot down a US drone Thursday, the latest in a series of incidents including attacks on tankers in sensitive Gulf waters that have raised fears of an unintended slide towards conflict.
Trump has tweeted that Washington would place “major additional sanctions on Iran on Monday”.
Russia on Monday denounced the new sanctions as “illegal”. Its President Vladimir Putin has warned of “disaster” if the US were to use force against Tehran.
|
|
June 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Iran, Israel, politics international |
Leave a comment
Trump warns Iran of ’obliteration like you’ve never seen before’ https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/trump-obliteration-iran-nuclear-weapons-pursuit-1376744, By MARTIN MATISHAK, 06/23/2019
President Donald Trump warned the United States may launch a devastating military attack on Iran unless it comes to the negotiating table and drops its bid to develop nuclear weapons.
“I’m not looking for war, and if there is, it’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before. But I’m not looking to do that. But you can’t have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk? Good. Otherwise you can have a bad economy for the next three years,” Trump said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press” airing Sunday.
The president said he’d be willing to sit down with Iranian officials without preconditions.
The comments, made during an interview taped Friday, came the same day Trump confirmed on Twitter that he called off a retaliatory strike on Iran at the last minute Thursday night. He said he decided that the potential cost of human lives was “not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Thursday it had shot down an American drone, claiming it had entered Iranian airspace, a claim disputed by the U.S., which has maintained the drone was over international waters. Both countries have since produced what they say is evidence supporting their respective positions.
Trump said the U.S. had a “modest but pretty, pretty heavy attack schedule,” but planes were not in the air when he called off the attack.
The commander in chief said the response now should be increased sanctions on Iran’s economy.
“We’re increasing the sanctions now,” adding the country’s economy has already been “shattered.”
Trump said he believes Iranian officials want to negotiate and that any deal would have to be about nuclear weapons. He also claimed that Iran had violated the nuclear agreement struck by the Obama administration and other world powers. International inspectors have repeatedly declared that Iran has complied with the 2015 deal.
“They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “They cannot have a nuclear weapon. They’d use it. And they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump also disputed that he sent a message to Iranian leaders through a third country, saying he did not want conflict, dubbing it “fake news.”
However, he also declined to send a message during the interview to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Wouldn’t be much different than that message,” Trump said.
June 24, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Iran, politics international, USA |
1 Comment
