US President Donald Trump on Saturday said Washington still had “one or two” targets left to strike in Iran, including a suspected underground nuclear complex known as Pickaxe Mountain, even as he maintained
that negotiations with Tehran were progressing.
“Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. They want to make a deal; we’ll find out about that,” Trump told reporters at his Florida residence.
Asked about the negotiations, Trump said they were “going fine” but questioned Tehran’s reliability. “They’re going fine, but they’re not very reliable. They make a deal and then they back out,” he said.
Trump claimed the US had already knocked out much of Iran’s military and nuclear capabilities but still needed to deal with a few remaining sites.
“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,” he said.
Referring to Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected underground nuclear complex, Trump added: “You probably could look at Pickaxe Mountain, and you have to take care of that. We can do that all very quickly.”
The Iranian government has denied that any nuclear activity is being carried out at the site.
US Yet To Decide On Fresh Strikes
Trump’s remarks came as Washington continued to signal that military action remained an option, while keeping the door open to diplomacy.
Earlier on Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump had not taken a decision on fresh strikes against Iran and that the United States remained open to a diplomatic solution.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, meanwhile, warned the US and Israel against launching further attacks, following Trump’s threats of renewed military action after the US midterm elections.
Trump had previously said he was weighing whether to “finish them off”, keeping the possibility of another round of strikes alive even as he spoke of a negotiated settlement.
The US and Israel launched the war against Iran at the end of February. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the campaign severely damaged Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure, while insisting that Tehran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.
