Trump weighs major new strike on Iran as nuclear discussions show no progress – CNN

U.S. President Donald Trump is weighing a major new strike on Iran after preliminary discussions between Washington and Tehran over limiting the country’s nuclear program and ballistic missile production failed to make progress, CNN reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Trump on Wednesday posted on Truth Social demanding that Iran come to the table to negotiate “a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS.” He warned the next U.S. attack on the country “will be far worse” than the one it carried out last summer, when the U.S. military attacked three of Iran’s nuclear sites. Trump’s latest threats were met with indignation by Tehran, which vowed an immediate response to any US military action.

Options he is now considering include US military airstrikes aimed at Iran’s leaders and the security officials believed to be responsible for the killings of protesters during the recent anti-government demonstrations, as well as strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and government institutions, CNN reported citing its sources. Trump has not made a final decision on how to proceed, sources told CNN, but he believes his military options have been expanded from earlier this month now that a U.S. carrier strike group is in the region.

The USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group entered the Indian Ocean on Monday and is continuing to move closer to Iran.

The U.S. and Iran had been exchanging messages — including through Omani diplomats and between Trump’s foreign envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi — earlier this month about a possible meeting to ward off a US attack, which Trump had been threatening in response to protesters’ deaths, the sources told CNN.

There was a brief discussion of an in-person meeting, but that never came to fruition, one source told CNN. There have been no serious direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran as Trump has ramped up his threats of military action in recent days, CNN cited another person familiar with the matter as saying.

Amid the threats of military action, the U.S. has also demanded preconditions for a meeting with Iranian officials, the sources told CNN, including a permanent end to uranium enrichment central to Iran’s nuclear program, new curbs on Iran’s ballistic missile program and halting all support for Iranian proxies in the region.

According to the report, the biggest sticking point has been the U.S. demand that Iran agree to put limits on the range of its ballistic missiles — an acute concern for Israel, which expended much of its missile interceptor stockpile shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles during last June’s 12-day war. Iran has balked at that and told the U.S. it would only discuss its nuclear program. The U.S. has not replied, leaving both sides at a dead end, CNN cited the sources as saying.