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Alongside Netanyahu, Trump announces direct US talks with Iran

Just a month after it was revealed that the US held direct talks with Hamas - a move that reportedly outraged the Israelis - the Trump administration is now beginning direct high-level talks with Iran, the president said on Monday. 

Sitting alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime advocate of military operations against Iran's nuclear facilities, Trump made the surprise announcement to reporters gathered in the Oval Office at the White House.

"We're having direct talks with Iran," President Donald Trump said.

"It'll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting and we'll see what can happen. And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious," he added, in reference to launching an attack.

"And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or frankly that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it. So we're going to see if we can avoid it, but it's getting to be very dangerous territory. And hopefully, those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran's best interests if they are successful," Trump said. 

In toned down rhetoric, and in a clear indication that he was made aware of the announcement beforehand, Netanyahu said that Israel and the US are "both united in the goal that Iran does not ever get nuclear weapons".

"If it can be done diplomatically in a full way, the way it was done in Libya, I think that would be a good thing," he told reporters. 

In 2003, former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi gave up on the early stages of a nuclear weapons programme under direct pressure from the Bill Clinton and George W Bush administrations, which used both sanctions and the threat of war. 

Iran had already signed onto the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the "Iran deal", under the Obama administration. The intent was to limit the degree of its uranium enrichment and allow in international inspectors.

The guarantors included all five permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as Germany and the European Union. But in 2018, Trump unliterally withdrew from the deal, effectively ensuring its collapse. 

Now, it appears he wants to cut his deal - one with his name on it.

Later on Monday, Nour News, affiliated with Iran's Supreme National Security Council, called Trump's remarks on direct talks a "complex and designed psychological operation to influence domestic and international opinion", without flatly denying they would take place. 

The nightly bombing of Yemen may have also had something to do with bringing Iran to the table, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also in the room, suggested.

Tehran provides the Houthis - who have formed the defacto government in Yemen for a decade now - with, at the very least, indirect military support. 

"It's been a bad three weeks for the Houthis, and it's about to get worse," Hegseth told reporters.

"It's been a devastating campaign, whether it's underground facilities, weapons manufacturing, bunkers, troops in the open air defence assets. We are not going to relent, and it's only going to get more unrelenting until the Houthis declare they will stop shooting at our ships," he said. "And we've been very clear that the Iranians... should not continue to provide support to the Houthis."

Since 15 March, at least 100 people have been killed across Yemen and scores more wounded because of US air strikes, the health ministry said, adding that many of the victims are women and children.

The Houthis have said their naval blockade in the Red Sea will only last as long as Israel's war on Gaza continues. 

The general tone of the meeting and press briefing was in contrast to Netanyahu's previous visit, which was markedly more upbeat and triumphant than Monday's. That could have a lot to do with Trump's sweeping tariffs.

Netanyahu’s visit came at short notice, hastened by deep concern over the 17 percent tariffs levied by the US on Israel. Last week, Israel dropped all tariffs on US goods, but on Monday, Trump made no indication he would do anything similar.

'Oceanfront property'

Asked by a reporter about the Palestinian Americans that backed him in the election in the hopes he could secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Trump said he was "very honoured by their vote" and that "the war will stop at some point that won't be in the too-distant future".

But his answer was short on specifics. 

"We're looking at another ceasefire," Trump said of discussions currently underway with mediators Egypt and Qatar, which are shuttling messages between Israel and Hamas. 

Instead, Trump quickly doubled down on his stunning February proposal to move out Gaza's residents so that the enclave can be turned into a beach resort. 

"They took oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace. How did that work out? Not good," Trump said of Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.

By 2007, Israel had enacted a land, sea and air blockade of Gaza that remains in place today. 

"I think it's an incredible piece of real estate and I think it's something that we'd be involved in. But you know, having a peace force like the United States there, controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing, because right now, all it is for years and years, all I hear about is killing," Trump said. 

"If you take the people and move them down to different countries - and you have plenty of countries that will do that - you really have a freedom zone," he said. 

Both the US and Israel have already engaged in talks with Somalia and South Sudan, among others, to take in Palestinians from Gaza.

The Arab League has firmly refuted the notion of resettling Palestinians in third countries. 

Most importantly, Trump said, "We want to get the hostages out." 

Only half of the 56 remaining captives held by various armed groups in Gaza are still believed to be alive. Hamas maintains that most of the dead were killed by Israeli air strikes. 

"We're committed to getting all the hostages out, but also eliminating the evil tyrant of Hamas in Gaza, and enabling the people of Gaza to freely make a choice to go wherever they want," Netanyahu said. "They should have that choice. And the president put forward a vision." 

Thousands of Israelis have held near-nightly demonstrations in Tel Aviv for a year and a half, demanding that Netanyahu accept a prisoner swap deal to bring back the captives in Gaza.

Instead of moving on to the agreed-upon second phase of the ceasefire that had begun on 19 January and expired on 1 March, Netanyahu resumed a full-scale war on Gaza and is now seizing territory on the ground. 

Syria-Turkey

Four months after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Israel is still carrying out bombing raids in Syria, targeting what it says are weapons caches but that local reports have said include scientific research facilities. 

Last week, Turkey, which for years helped propel Syrian rebels, expressed outrage at remarks by Israeli officials who said Ankara was seeking to create a "protectorate" in Syria, and plans to establish military bases there. 

"We've had neighbourly relations with Turkey that have deteriorated, and we don't want to see Syria being used by anyone, including Turkey, as a base for attack in Israel," Netanyahu told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. 

"Turkey is a country that has a great relationship with the United States. The president has a relationship with the leader of Turkey," he said. 

Trump confirmed he has "a great relationship with a man named Erdogan," referencing Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president.

"I like him, he likes me, and that drives the media crazy," Trump said. "We have never had a problem and we have gone through a lot."

"I told Erdogan, 'You did what no one has done in 2,000 years - you took control of Syria,'" Trump said. "He has taken it over through surrogates."

Erdogan initially denied it, Trump added. 

"He goes, 'No, no, no, no, no, it was not me,' and I said it was you, but that's ok, you don't have to say."

"'Well ok, sort of, it was me,'" Trump said Erdogan told him.

The quip drew laughter from the room. 

On Monday, Middle East Eye reported that Israel is lobbying the US during its trip to stop the sale of F-35s to Turkey, in a bid to maintain its qualitative military edge in the region.