The Hague, June 25, 2025: U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that the United States and Iran are set to hold talks “next week,” even as he questioned the necessity of reaching a new nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Speaking at a press conference during the NATO summit in The Hague, President Trump suggested that Washington’s only demand remains unchanged: “no nuclear weapons.”
“I don’t care if I have an agreement or not,” Trump told reporters. “The only thing we’d be asking for is what we were asking for before, we want no nuclear [capability].”
While the format and scope of the upcoming discussions remain unclear, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that direct talks were being pursued by the U.S. administration.
Trump’s remarks came as a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran entered its second day, following 12 days of intense warfare — including Israeli airstrikes, Iranian ballistic missile barrages, and direct U.S. military involvement in targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
President Trump dismissed a preliminary U.S. intelligence report which claimed that the American strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. He insisted the damage was far more significant.
“The intelligence says we don’t know. But I think it was very severe. There was obliteration,” he said, echoing earlier claims of a decisive blow.
Secretary Rubio offered a more detailed rebuttal to the intelligence findings, asserting that Iran’s capabilities had been set back by years, not months.
Backing the U.S. narrative, Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission released a statement declaring that the American strike on Iran’s fortified Fordo facility had “destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.”
Israel’s military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, said on Wednesday that with the immediate threat from Iran reduced, Israel would refocus its efforts on the ongoing campaign in Gaza against Hamas.
