Live updates: US signals pause in Iran strikes will allow talks to progress | CNN
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz spoke to NBC and Fox in interviews published on Sunday about the war in Iran and the US-Saudi nuclear deal. Catch up on what he said:
Iran Escalation Talks Prompt Concerns About Munitions, Casualties
On Friday, President Donald Trump and his top advisors had talks regarding escalation in Iran, but since then the fighting has seemingly paused. CNN’s Betsy Klein reports.
President Donald Trump is allowing talks with Iran to develop during the weekend’s apparent pause in strikes, according to Waltz.
In a separate interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Waltz said diplomatic efforts have ramped up “particularly in the past few days.”
But in the NBC interview, Waltz reiterated Trump’s warning that the US military is “locked and loaded” and said the president is “keeping all options on the table.”
Waltz claimed internal divisions within the Iranian regime have made negotiations challenging.
CNN reported that in a Friday meeting at the White House where Trump and top officials discussed the possibility of an escalation in the war, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine raised concerns about the US munitions stockpile, among other potentially negative implications.
Waltz appeared to concede that “a lot of stockpiles were depleted,” casting blame on US provisions to Ukraine and what he described as the “depleted situation” the Trump administration inherited from its predecessor.
Waltz reaffirmed that a deal providing a civilian nuclear program for Saudi Arabia will not take effect until the kingdom normalizes relations with Israel.
The controversial deal was announced last week. But one day after it was signed, Trump placed a new condition on the pact: Saudi Arabia must first enter into the Abraham Accords.
The series of agreements aimed at establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East. The Saudis have historically been resistant to such efforts.
He suggested that the Saudis could have gone to “the Russians for nuclear technology” or “to the Chinese for nuclear technology,” but chose the US.