US President Donald Trump has said the United States still has one or two targets left in Iran, including a suspected nuclear site, and could deal with them in minutes if it chose to.
“We’ve knocked out their nuclear. We still have to take care of, I would say one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes,” Trump told reporters at his Florida residence on Saturday.
He named Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected underground nuclear complex, as one of the remaining sites. Iran has denied that any nuclear work takes place there.
Trump said negotiations with Iran were going fine, and that Tehran wanted a deal. He added that Iran was “not very reliable” and had a record of agreeing to terms and then backing out. He said the United States was in no hurry. In his account, the US had already destroyed much of Iran’s military and its nuclear programme.
Asked whether he would order fresh strikes, Trump called it a stupid question. He said he would not announce such a decision in advance even if he had made one.
His remarks came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump had not decided on new strikes and that the United States remained open to a diplomatic solution. Trump has previously said he is weighing further military action after the US midterm elections.
The United States and Israel began the war on Iran at the end of February. A ceasefire has held, with violations, since 8 April. Pakistan brokered it and has remained at the centre of the diplomacy since. Islamabad hosted the first face to face talks between the US and Iran in April, led on the American side by Vice President JD Vance, and those talks ended after 21 hours without a deal. In June, Pakistan and Qatar mediated a four party round in Lucerne, Switzerland, that Vance described as historic.
Qatar has also taken on a growing role in the talks, with Doha hosting Iranian officials in recent rounds. For Pakistan, whatever Washington decides next lands directly on its western border and on the diplomatic channel it has spent months building.
