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Investing.com - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has that Iran is now "much further" away from developing a nuclear weapon following air strikes ordered by President Donald Trump over the weekend.
Rubio’s comments, made in an interview with Politico on the sidelines of this week’s NATO summit, came after Trump declared in a social media post on Tuesday that three Iranian nuclear facilities targeted by the U.S. attacks -- in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan -- had been "completely destroyed."
However, preliminary reports from U.S. intelligence agencies have suggested that Iran’s enriched uranium stocks were not eradicated by the strikes and the nation’s mostly-underground nuclear program may have only been set back by a couple of months, according to media outlets.
Yet Rubio called the media reports "false," saying the "bottom line" was that Iran is now "much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were" before Trump gave the green light to the attacks. He added that "significant, very significant, substantial damage was done to a variety of different components."
Trump also views a possible regime change in Iran as likely if leaders in Tehran continue in the same direction, although the United States’ "job is not to go around and set up governments for every country," Rubio noted. Trump has recently raised the possibility of a change in Iran’s longstanding leadership, but officials in his administration have stressed that they are not working to overthrow the government.
A ceasefire between Iran and Israel brokered by Trump appeared to still be in place on Wednesday, one day after the regional rivals said they had ended an air war after 12 days.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, said late on Tuesday that negotiations with Iran were "promising," adding that Washington is continuing to hope for a long-term peace with Tehran.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump announced the start of the ceasefire, but lashed out at both Israel and Iran for carrying on with attacks that seemed to have already been planned before the agreement was revealed.