After three-hour White House meeting, Trump says he ‘insisted’ to Netanyahu that Iran talks should continue

JTA – Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu met United States President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday, 11 February, in an effort to push the US leader to widen negotiation with Iran to include Israeli security priorities. 

“Nothing definitive” came out of the highly anticipated meeting between the leaders, which lasted roughly three hours, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social immediately afterwards. But he signalled that he had resisted a push to end direct talks with Iran. 

“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a deal can be consummated. If it can, I let the prime minister know that will be a preference. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be,” wrote Trump. 

Prior to boarding a flight on his way to Washington, DC on Tuesday, Netanyahu told reporters that his meeting with Trump would centre “first and foremost” on negotiations with Iran. 

“I will present to the president our views on the principles in the negotiations, the important principles, and in my opinion they are important not only to Israel, but to everyone in the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East,” Netanyahu told reporters. 

During Wednesday’s meeting, which was closed to the press, Netanyahu was expected to push Trump to widen negotiations with Iran beyond its nuclear programme, including imposing restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile programme and ending Iranian support for Hamas and Hezbollah. 

The talks on Wednesday were also expected to centre on developments in the ceasefire in Gaza, with Netanyahu officially joining the Board of Peace during a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier in the day. 

Netanyahu’s visit on Wednesday was his sixth to the US since the beginning of Trump’s term. Trump surprised him at an earlier meeting by announcing that he planned to open direct talks with Iran, which has vowed to destroy Israel. 

The visit shortly followed talks in Oman on Friday between Iran’s foreign minister and Trump administration officials on reaching a potential nuclear deal. Those talks came a month after Iranian leaders ordered a crackdown on civil protesters in which an estimated 30 000 Iranians or more were murdered. 

On Tuesday, Trump told Axios that he was “thinking” about sending another aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf where he has already assembled a large military buildup, adding, “Either we will make a deal, or we will have to do something very tough like last time.” 

Iran has said it will retaliate if the US strikes to curb its nuclear programme, sparking concern of a war. Last June, the US struck three nuclear sites in Iran amid the country’s 12-day war with Israel, damaging but not destroying them. 

In an interview on Tuesday with Fox Business Network’s Larry Kudlow, Trump said that a good deal with Iran would mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles”. 

“We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal,” said Trump. “I think they’d be foolish if they didn’t. We took out their nuclear power last time, and we’ll have to see if we take out more this time.”