The fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran appeared to be holding on Wednesday while US president Donald Trump asserted that US and Iranian officials will talk next week, giving rise to cautious hope for longer-term peace even as Tehran insisted it will not give up its nuclear programme.
Mr Trump, who helped negotiate the ceasefire that took hold on Tuesday on the 12th day of the war, told reporters at a Nato summit that he was not particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, insisting that US strikes had destroyed its nuclear programme.
Earlier in the day, an Iranian official questioned whether the United States could be trusted after its weekend attack.
“We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Mr Trump said.
“The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done.”
Iran has not acknowledged any talks taking place next week, though US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries.
A sixth round of negotiations between the US and Iran had been scheduled for earlier this month in Oman but was cancelled when Israel attacked Iran.
Earlier, Mr Trump said the ceasefire was going “very well”, and added that Iran was “not going to have a bomb and they’re not going to enrich”.
Iran has insisted, however, that it will not give up its nuclear programme.
In a vote underscoring the tough path ahead, its parliament agreed to fast-track a proposal that would effectively stop the country’s co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN watchdog that has monitored the programme for years.
Ahead of the vote, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf criticised the IAEA for having “refused to even pretend to condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities” that the United States carried out on Sunday.
“For this reason, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran will suspend co-operation with the IAEA until security of nuclear facilities is ensured, and Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme will move forward at a faster pace,” Mr Qalibaf told legislators.
IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said he had already written to Iran to discuss resuming inspections of their nuclear facilities.
Among other things, Iran claims to have moved its highly enriched uranium ahead of the US strikes, and Mr Grossi said his inspectors need to reassess the country’s stockpiles.
“We need to return,” he said.
“We need to engage.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country was part of the 2015 deal with Iran that restricted its nuclear programme but began unravelling after Mr Trump pulled the US out in his first term, said he hoped Tehran would come back to the table.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme was peaceful, and US intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb.
However, Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.
Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons, which it has never acknowledged.
The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said its assessment was that the US and Israeli strikes have “set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years”.
It did not give evidence to back up its claim.
The US strikes hit three Iranian nuclear sites, which Mr Trump said “completely and fully obliterated” the country’s nuclear programme.
At the Nato summit, when asked about a US intelligence report that found Iran’s nuclear programme has been set back only a few months, Mr Trump scoffed and said it would at least take “years” to rebuild.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei confirmed that the strikes by US B-2 bombers using bunker-buster bombs had caused significant damage.
“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” he told Al Jazeera on Wednesday, while refusing to go into detail.
Mr Baghaei seemed to suggest Iran might not shut out IAEA inspectors for good, noting that the bill before parliament only talks of suspending work with the agency, not ending it.
He also insisted Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear energy programme.
“Iran is determined to preserve that right under any circumstances,” he said.
Mr Witkoff said on Fox News late on Tuesday that Israel and the US had achieved their objective of “the total destruction of the enrichment capacity” in Iran, and Iran’s prerequisite for talks – that Israel end its campaign – had been fulfilled.
“The proof is in the pudding,” he said.
“No-one’s shooting at each other. It’s over.”
Mr Grossi said he could not speculate on how bad the damage was but that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were well known.
“The technical knowledge is there, and the industrial capacity is there,” he said.
“That no-one can deny, so we need to work together with them.”
An Israeli official said the ceasefire agreement with Iran amounted to “quiet for quiet”, with no further understandings about Iran’s nuclear programme going ahead.
In the Fox News interview, Mr Witkoff said Mr Trump is now looking to land “a comprehensive peace agreement that goes beyond even the ceasefire”.
“We’re already talking to each other, not just directly, but also through interlocutors,” Mr Witkoff said, adding that the conversations were promising and “we’re hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement”.
However, Mr Baghaei said Washington had “torpedoed diplomacy” with its attacks on nuclear sites, and that while Iran in principle was always open to talks, national security was the priority.
“We have to make sure whether the other parties are really serious when they’re talking about diplomacy, or is it again part of their tactics to make more problems for the region and for my country,” he said.
China, a close Iranian partner and major buyer of Iranian oil, said it hoped a “lasting and effective ceasefire can be achieved so as to promote” peace and stability in the region.
China has blamed Israel for starting the war and destabilising the region.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that China is willing to “inject positive factors to safeguard peace and stability in the Middle East”.
Mr Grossi said Iran and the international community should seize the opportunity of the ceasefire for a long-term diplomatic solution.
“Out of the … bad things that military conflict brings, there’s also now a possibility, an opening,” he said.
“We shouldn’t miss that opportunity.”
