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(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump suggested he might back eventual sanctions relief for Iran “if they can be peaceful,” combining threats and the prospect of diplomacy after US strikes aimed at destroying Iranian nuclear sites.
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“We have the sanctions on,” Trump said in comments on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “And if they do a job, and if they can be peaceful, and if they can show us they’re not going to do any more harm, I would take the sanctions off.”
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Trump said Friday he considered easing sanctions on Iran after a ceasefire but would instead keep them in place, while lashing out at Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for claiming victory in the war with Israel.
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That followed his comments last week hinting at relief when he said he doesn’t mind China continuing to buy Iranian oil. White House officials later indicated that didn’t mean an easing of US restrictions.
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In the Fox News interview, which was taped Friday, Trump renewed his argument that Iran was weeks away from getting a nuclear weapon and that US strikes “obliterated” a key underground site of Iran’s nuclear program.
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He also injected a note of caution, saying that Iran’s nuclear ambitions had been set back “at least for a period of time.”
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US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a foreign-policy hawk who’s close to Trump, suggested the US require that Iran recognize Israel’s right to exist as a condition for resuming US-Iranian talks which went through several inconclusive rounds this year.
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“They have to say, for the first time — the Iranian regime — we recognize Israel’s right to exist,” Graham said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “If they can’t say that, you’re never going to get a deal worth a damn.”
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The head of the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency disputed the Trump administration’s claims about the level of damage to Iran’s nuclear program from US strikes, which targeted its uranium enrichment capabilities.
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“One cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage.”
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Iran has industrial and technological capabilities to resume producing enriched uranium possibly “in a matter of months,” he said. “So if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.”
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He cautioned that damage assessment isn’t the IAEA’s job and the agency’s information on the state of Iran’s nuclear program is limited.
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