Trump Tells Iran ‘We’ll Talk’ in Speech Touting ‘Obliterated’ Nuclear Site

 

President Donald Trump used the World Economic Forum stage at Davos as a signal to Iran’s rulers on Thursday that he’ll accept their invitation to “talk” after protests that swept the country resulted in the threat of a military response if demonstrators were killed.

The remark came as the president unveiled a new international Board of Peace, billed as an oversight body for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

During his address, the president repeated his claims to have ended several wars throughout his first year in office while touting military interventions that included his strikes on an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility last year:

In another great victory for the ultimate goal of peace, in June, we obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity with operation. We call it Operation Midnight Hammer, it was. It was midnight. It was dark. No moon. And every single one of those bombs from the B-2 bombers hit the air shafts and went deep into the Earth and totally obliterated everything that they were doing. They were two months away from having a nuclear weapon. We can’t let that happen.

Iran does want to talk, and we’ll talk.

Trump’s tone marked a contrast with his language only days earlier when he publicly urged new leadership in Iran, accusing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of “the complete destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never seen before.”

The escalation followed weeks of demonstrations sparked by Iran’s deepening economic crisis.

At the start of January, Trump had warned that the U.S. was “locked and loaded and ready to go” should Tehran respond to the protests with indiscriminate killings. Reports from inside Iran alleged mass bloodshed by paramilitary forces, amplifying international pressure on the regime.

Yet the White House has since dialed back the prospect of direct military action. After Iranian authorities said they would pause plans for mass executions of detainees, Trump stepped away from threats of strikes.

Watch above via CNN.

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