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President Donald Trump will decide whether the United States is directly involved in the Iran-Israel conflict in the next two weeks, the White House said.
In a White House press point, press secretary Karoline Leavitt has sent a message directly from Trump:
“Based on the fact that there is substantial chances of negotiations which can take place or not with Iran in the near future, I will decide or not in the next two weeks.”
Earlier, the Iranian Foreign Minister Deputy Minister told the BBC that this would cause “hell” in the region if the United States was involved, adding: “It is not the American war”.
The news comes 24 hours after Trump said he had not decided to join the conflict.
When asked what was the message for “Trump supporters every day” who have concerns about American participation, Leavitt said “to trust President Trump”.
She added that the president’s “absolute priority” is to ensure that Iran does not successfully build a nuclear weapon.
The press secretary has so far refused on several occasions to discuss “hypotheses”, especially if Iranian officials could come to the White House, or if Trump would request the approval of the Congress for any American involvement.
Trump and his administration sought to maintain an air of strategic ambiguity – not publicly revealing their potential thought plans.
“I can do it,” he told journalists on Wednesday. “I may not be doing it.”
The administration maintained that it thinks that Iran has “never been closer” to the successful construction of a nuclear weapon.
Trump rejected information assessments – some of which were given by the national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard at Congress earlier this year – that Iran did not plan to do so.
Speculations went up on Trump’s intentions on Wednesday after Iran’s supreme chief Ali Khamenei rejected his request for surrender.
The American partner of the BBC CBS reported that Trump had approved plans to attack IranBut had not made a final decision on the opportunity to move forward.
The American president retained himself in the event that Iran agreed to abandon his nuclear program, said an intelligence.
Trump responded on Truth Social on Thursday, saying that the Wall Street Journal, where the reports appeared for the first time, had “no idea of my thoughts concerning Iran”. He did not explain if plans had been approved.
The president would have considered strikes on the Iranian nuclear site Fordo, an underground uranium installation.
Iran insists that Fordo is used for civil purposes only.
The location of the site, hidden on the mountainside, puts it out of reach of the weapons of Israel. Only the United States is considered to have a bomb that could be large enough to destroy Fordo.
Diplomatic efforts are underway while the conflict continues, European foreign ministers who should meet their Iranian counterpart in Switzerland on Friday.
Leavitt said the correspondence between American negotiators and the Iranians continued.
Reuters reported earlier than the American special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had spoke on the phone several times since Israel began his strikes on Iran last week, in order to find a diplomatic term in the crisis.
The Iranian Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh told the BBC that he hoped diplomacy as “first option”, but that although the bombing continues “, we cannot start any negotiations”.
He said that American participation would be “hell for the whole region”, which would transform the conflict into “quagmire”, would continue to aggressor and delay the end of “brutal atrocities”.
It is not “the American war” and if Trump gets involved, he will always remain in memories like “a president who has entered a war to which he does not belong,” added Khatibzadeh.
Trump’s two -week deadline occurred after a hospital in southern Israel was hit in an Iranian missile attack on Thursday morning.
The Iranian state media reported that the strike was aimed at a military site next to the hospital, not the establishment itself.
The Israeli Health Ministry said 71 people were injured in the attack on the Soroka Medical Center.
Israel said that at least 24 people had been killed in the country since the start of the conflict. The Iranian state media updated the number of deaths for the last time on Sunday, June 15, when he said that 224 people had been killed.
The news agency for human rights activists (Hrana) – an organization of human rights based in Washington which has long followed Iran – said that 639 people had been killed in Iran since Friday last week.
The Israeli army continued its strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure on Thursday, saying that it had struck an “inactive nuclear reactor” in Arak during night raids which also saw the ease of enrichment in uranium in targeted Natanz.
