Trump: “The new leaders of Iran want to talk – and I agreed”

US President Donald Trump gave several interviews to foreign media this evening (Sunday). Trump described in an interview to “The Atlantic”: “The new leadership in Iran is ready to come to the negotiating table, I agree to that.” In a conversation with a journalist from Fox News, Trump claimed that “the operation in Iran is progressing, and it is progressing rapidly.” According to him, “We do our work not only for ourselves but for the world.”

“The new leadership in Iran approached me and said they wanted to talk – and I agreed to talk with them,” the US president told The Atlantic magazine. However, he refused to say when such a conversation would actually take place. “Most of those who were involved in the negotiation talks are dead. They could have made a deal first, but they played it too smart.”

On Trump’s social network, Truth Social, Trump updated: “We destroyed and sank 9 Iranian Navy ships, some of them relatively large and important. We are chasing the rest – they too will soon float to the bottom of the sea! In another attack, we largely destroyed their naval headquarters.” Trump scolded the Iranians: “Besides, their navy is doing very well.”

Today, the Americans announced that since the beginning of the war, 3 soldiers of the US Army have been killed, and 5 others have been seriously injured. “The situation is sensitive, and therefore out of respect for the families, we will keep the privacy of the information, including the identity of our fallen soldiers, until 24 hours after the message is passed on to the families,” said the US Central Command.

Earlier today, a senior American claimed that the US military was preparing for an operation that would last weeks. The senior told Al Jazeera: “We expect the military operation against Iran to last weeks and not just days. We knew it wouldn’t be quick, we are ready for a long fight. We do not know for sure how Khamenei’s death will affect Iran’s capabilities and military responses. Our military operations are focused and we aim to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.”

On N12 we published that American B2 bombers participated in yesterday’s attacks in Iran. A senior American official said that the target attacked by the B2 bombers was to destroy Iranian missile launchers located in an underground site inside caves. Fox News described that 4 B2 planes flew back and forth from the United States to Iran – and they dropped dozens of bombs weighing 900 kilograms on different targets.

Yesterday the President of the United States Trump told “News 12” that there are several options for ending the campaign against Iran and he conveyed an implicit message to the Iranians – the campaign can be long or short. According to him, he “can make it long and take over everything – or finish in a few more days and tell the Iranians we’ll see each other again in a few years if you start rebuilding.”

The president claimed that the Iranians came close to a deal and then backed out, time after time, and that’s how he realized that “they don’t really want to go to a deal.” Trump also said: “I started writing a speech, and I told my people, ‘Give me all the attacks that the Iranians have done in the world in the last 25 years.’ I saw that every month they did something bad, blew something up and killed someone.”

The president clarified that if the Americans had not attacked Iran in June – “they would have had nuclear weapons by now”. Regarding the conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu, he added: “We broadcast on the same wave.”