Speaking at the inaugural Board of Peace meeting in Washington, DC, on Thursday, the United States president reiterated his argument that the joint Israeli-US strikes against Iran in June of last year paved the way to the “ceasefire” in Gaza.
Trump argued that without the US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the “threat” of Iran would have prevented countries in the region from agreeing to “peace in the Middle East”.
“So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not,” Trump said. “Maybe we’re going to make a deal. You’re going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.”
Trump’s comments come days after the US and Iran held a second round of indirect talks.
Wednesday, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi said the two sides made “good progress in the negotiations” in Geneva and “were able to reach broad agreement on a set of guiding principles” for an agreement.
But the US has continued to amass military assets in the Gulf region, including two aircraft carriers and dozens of fighter jets.
