By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that talks between the United States and Iran were “promising” and that Washington was hopeful for a long-term peace deal.
KEY QUOTES
“We are already talking to each other, not just directly but also through interlocutors. I think that the conversations are promising. We are hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran,” Witkoff said in an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” show.
“Now its for us to sit down with the Iranians and get to a comprehensive peace agreement, and I am very confident that we are going to achieve that,” he added.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Since April, Iran and the U.S. have held indirect talks aimed at finding a new diplomatic solution regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran says its program is peaceful and Washington says it wants to ensure Iran cannot build a nuclear weapon.
Trump announced a ceasefire on Monday between U.S. ally Israel and its regional rival Iran which was aimed at ending their air war that began on June 13 when Israel struck Iran. The conflict had raised alarms in a region that was already on edge since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
CONTEXT
Israel is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons and says its war against Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons. Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while Israel is not.
The U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend and Iran targeted a U.S. base in Qatar on Monday in retaliation, before Trump announced an Israel-Iran ceasefire on social media.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry)
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