President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he wasn’t particularly interested in getting Iran and Israel to sign an agreement formalizing a ceasefire, saying he had resolved the long-running tensions between the two nations.
Although his administration is meeting with Iran in the coming days, he said he isn’t prioritizing getting an agreement signed.
“To me, I don’t think it’s that necessary,” he said of a formal ceasefire agreement while speaking to reporters at a NATO summit in the Netherlands. “I mean, they had a war they fought. Now they’re going back to their world. I don’t care if I have an agreement or not, the only thing we’d be asking for is what we were asking for before, about we want no nuclear, but we, we destroyed the nuclear.”
The president framed the recent ceasefire and U.S. airstrikes on Iran as a resounding success. After 12 days of fighting, attacks largely ceased between Israel and Iran, and the Trump administration has said U.S. strikes decimated Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But some intelligence has suggested that facilities could get back up and running within months, not years.
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And even Trump acknowledged that Israel and Iran could start fighting again, although he expressed doubt that this would happen.
“I dealt with both and they’re both tired, exhausted,” he said. “They fought very, very hard and very viciously, very violently, and they were both satisfied to go home and get out. And can it start again? I guess someday, it can. It could maybe start soon.”
Trump, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, repeatedly refuted a leaked classified report that suggested the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities may have only set them back months, as opposed to years, as the White House is claiming.
“They presented a report that wasn’t finished. We’re talking about something that took place three days ago,” Trump said about the leaked intelligence assessment. “They didn’t see it. All they can do is take a guess.”
Trump also hailed successful peacemaking efforts between Congo and Rwanda, as well as between India and Pakistan. But he faced questions about his so far unsuccessful efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
In response to a question from a Ukrainian reporter, Trump said the door was open to supplying Ukraine with some of the same antimissile capabilities the U.S. provides to Israel.
Trump said that he had not been able to broker peace in Ukraine due to troubles with the Russian and Ukrainian presidents.
“Vladimir Putin has been more difficult,” Trump said. “Frankly, I had some problems with [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. You may have read about him, and it’s been more difficult than other wars. I mean, look, we just ended a war in 12 days that was simmering for 30 years.”
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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