Washington, United States:

Iran is capable of producing fissile material for use in a nuclear weapon within “one or two weeks,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.

News of Iran’s capabilities follows the recent election of President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has said his goal is to “get Iran out of its isolation,” and who favors reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers.

Blinken said that “what we’ve seen in the last weeks and months is an Iran that’s actually moving forward” with its nuclear program.

The United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal, which was designed to regulate Iran’s atomic activities in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Speaking at a security forum in Colorado, Blinken blamed the collapse of the nuclear deal for the acceleration in Iran’s capabilities.

“Instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, (Iran) is now probably one or two weeks away from doing that,” Blinken said.

He added that Iran had not yet developed a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri told CNN earlier this week that his country remained committed to the deal, known as the JCPOA.

“We are still a member of JCPOA. America has not yet been able to return to the JCPOA, so the goal we are pursuing is the revival of the 2015 agreement,” he said. “We are not looking for a new agreement.”

Bagheri added that: “Neither I nor anyone else in Iran has not talked and will not talk about a new agreement. We have an agreement (signed) in 2015.”

Blinken made the statement just days after reports emerged that the US Secret Service increased security for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weeks ago, after authorities learned of an alleged Iranian plot to kill him.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told two top Israeli officials on Monday of the “unacceptably high” civilian casualties in Israel’s bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, his spokesman said.

The Israeli military has launched several deadly attacks in recent days including on a refugee camp and multiple UN-run schools where civilians were sheltering.

In response, Hamas said it was pulling out of ceasefire negotiations, causing prospects for a truce and hostage release deal to dwindle further.

Mr. Blinken received two influential Israeli officials — Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi — “to express our serious concern about the recent civilian casualties in Gaza.”

Casualties “still remain unacceptably high. We continue to see far too many civilians killed in this conflict,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

On Saturday, Israeli strikes killed more than 90 people in the al-Mawasi camp near Khan Yunis, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said.

AFP reported sirens wailing and women screaming as children were pulled bloody and unmoving from the wreckage in Al-Mawasi, which Israel had declared a “safe zone”.

The Israeli military said the bombardment targeted two people — the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, and his close associate Rafa Salama who the army said was killed.

A Hamas official said Sunday that Deif was “well and directly overseeing” operations, though doubts remained.

The two Israeli officials told Blinken that “they do not have certainty yet” about Deif’s fate, according to Miller.

The bilateral discussions also focused on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, humanitarian aid for Gaza and post-war plans, he said.

The visit comes several few days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to address the US Congress on July 24.

“We continue to hear from Israel directly that they want to reach a ceasefire and that they’re committed to the proposal that they put forward,” Miller said.

The United States has strongly defended Israel since the October 7 attacks by Hamas, in which 1,195 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

During the attack, the militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 38,584 people, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.

U.S. President Joe Biden has been under mounting political pressure over the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“We are incredibly troubled by the ongoing deaths of Palestinians in Gaza,” Miller said Monday, when asked about US weapons provided to Israel.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov (L) looks on during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (R) and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on the sidelines of the NATO Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on July 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet on July 10 in Washington for a fresh round of U.S.-mediated talks, Yerevan and Washington announced, as the arch-foe neighbours negotiate a peace agreement.

The Caucasus rivals fought two wars — in the 1990s and in 2020 — over control of Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, which had been predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians.

Last autumn, Baku recaptured the mountainous enclave in a one-day offensive that led to the exodus of its entire Armenian population — more than 1,00,000 people.

Years of internationally mediated peace talks between Baku and Yerevan have failed to produce a breakthrough, but the two countries’ leaders said recently that a comprehensive peace deal is within reach.

“A trilateral meeting between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be held on July 10,” Armenian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Ani Badalyan said.

The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, she added.

The meeting was listed on Mr. Blinken’s official schedule for Wednesday, 10:15 a.m. (1415 GMT), according to the U.S. Department of State’s website.

State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. continues “to work for a diplomatic resolution” of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, but refused to provide further details about the planned talks.

Mr. Blinken has led repeated talks between the countries in hopes of averting further conflict.

Last week, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his country “needs a new constitution” because the current one “doesn’t reflect citizens’ vision of the relations with neighbouring countries”.

The statement came in response to Baku’s demand that Yerevan remove from its constitution a reference to the country’s 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union, which proclaims Armenia’s unification with Karabakh as a national goal.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said that reaching a peace agreement with Armenia is impossible until Armenia removes territorial claims to Karabakh from its constitution.

In May, Armenia returned to Azerbaijan four border villages that it had seized decades earlier, with Mr. Pashinyan saying the move was part of his efforts to secure peace with Azerbaijan.

Last month, Mr. Pashinyan said Yerevan was ready to sign a peace agreement with Baku “within a month”.

Mr. Aliyev said last week that the text of the agreement could be finalised within a matter of several months.

Washington:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel during a Monday meeting with its defense minister to avoid further escalation in Lebanon as they discussed efforts to reach a deal to free hostages in Gaza.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was on a visit to Washington seeking to reaffirm the value of ties with Israel’s top ally, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly chastised the United States for what he said was a delay in weapons deliveries.

In a two-hour meeting with Gallant at the State Department, Blinken discussed indirect diplomacy between Israel and Hamas on an agreement that “secures the release of all hostages and alleviates the suffering of the Palestinian people,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

Blinken also “underscored the importance of avoiding further escalation of the conflict and reaching a diplomatic resolution that allows both Israeli and Lebanese families to return to their homes,” Miller said in a statement.

Tensions have been rising with growing exchanges of fire between Israel and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed militant movement Hezbollah.

Netanyahu has said Israeli forces are winding up the most intense part of the Gaza war and will redeploy to the northern border, although he cast the move as defensive.

Gallant also met CIA chief Bill Burns, the key US pointman in negotiations to free hostages from Hamas.

“I would like to emphasize that it is Israel’s primary commitment to return the hostages, with no exception, to their families and homes,” Gallant said before starting his meetings.

“We will continue to make every possible effort to bring them home,” he said.

The minister made no further comment as he left the meeting with Blinken, as a few dozen protesters outside the State Department chanted to call him a “war criminal.”

– Arms shipment dispute –

President Joe Biden on May 31 laid out a plan for a ceasefire in Gaza and release of hostages.

Hamas, which launched the conflict with its October 7 attack on Israel, has come back with its own demands, and the United States hopes the gaps can be bridged.

Netanyahu, who has faced major protests calling for him to accept the deal, in recent days has annoyed the Biden administration by accusing Washington of cutting back arms and ammunition deliveries.

Gallant took a different tack, saying: “The alliance between Israel and the United States, led by the US over many years, is extremely important.”

Other than Israel’s own military, “our ties with the US are the most important element for our future from a security perspective,” he said.

Biden, who has faced criticism from parts of his own base over his support for Israel, held back a shipment that included heavy 2,000-pound bombs.

Netanyahu — who has close relations with Biden’s rivals in the Republican Party — told a cabinet meeting on Sunday that there was a “dramatic drop in the supply” of US weapons around four months ago.

Asked about his latest remark, Miller told reporters, “I don’t understand what that comment meant at all.”

“We have paused one shipment of high-payload munitions. That shipment remains on pause,” Miller told reporters.

“There are other weapons that we continue to provide Israel, as we have done going back years and years, because we are committed to Israel’s security. There has been no change in that,” Miller said.

Miller said the United States would also press Israel to work on longer-term arrangements after the end of the fighting.

“We don’t want to see in Rafah what we’ve seen in Gaza City and what we’ve seen in Khan Yunis, which is the end of major combat operations and then the beginning of Hamas reasserting control,” he said, referring to two other major cities targeted by Israel earlier in the war.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea and reaffirmed the “vital” importance of the Seoul-Washington alliance during phone talks with his South Korean counterpart, his spokesperson said.

The call between Blinken and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul came on Friday after Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty on their cooperation in defence and other areas during their summit in Pyongyang on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reported.

“The Secretary condemned deepening military cooperation between North Korea and Russia, including ongoing arms transfers that violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions, and reaffirmed the vital importance of the ironclad US-South Korea alliance in promoting peace, security, and prosperity around the world,” Matthew Miller, the Spokesperson, said in a statement.

Blinken thanked Cho for Seoul’s continued support for Ukraine while the two sides agreed to continue working together to address the “complex and evolving” security challenges posed by North Korea, as well as to support peace and stability in the South China Sea, according to Miller.

This week’s summit between Putin and Kim has been a major source of concern for both Seoul and Washington due to its implications for regional and global security.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a media conference after a meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers at the Czernin Palace, in Prague, Czech Republic, on May 31, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday hit back at Russia’s allegation that the conviction of former President Donald Trump showed that the White House was targeting political rivals.

“I would say that’s a classic case of projection,” Mr. Blinken told reporters at a NATO meeting in Prague.

The top U.S. diplomat declined any further comment on the Trump verdict, including on whether his NATO counterparts raised it, saying he does not discuss domestic U.S. politics.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow that the conviction of Mr. Trump showed that President Joe Biden’s administration was “eliminating” its political rivals.

Mr. Trump, who has voiced admiration in the past for Russian President Vladimir Putin, is seeking to win back the White House from Mr. Biden in November elections. He risks jail time as the first President of the United States to be convicted of a felony.

Mr. Biden has been strongly critical of Mr. Putin both over the invasion of Ukraine and the treatment of prisoners including opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny, who died in a remote penal colony in February.

Washington:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that Israel needed a post-war plan as soon as possible after a senior Israeli official predicted that fighting in Gaza would last until the end of the year.

“In the absence of a plan for the day after, there won’t be a day after. And this is where we need to go, and (what) we need to get, as quickly as possible,” Blinken told reporters on a visit to Moldova.

Such a plan would ensure that Israel is not in control of Gaza’s security in the long term, he said.

“If it is, it will simply have an enduring insurgency on his hands for as far as one can see into the future,” Blinken said.

“Or if not, Hamas will be left in charge, which is not acceptable. Or if not, we’ll have chaos, lawlessness and a vacuum that eventually will be filled again by Hamas or maybe something, if it’s possible to imagine, even worse — jihadists.”

Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said earlier that the military would need “another seven months” to “consolidate our success” against Hamas.

President Joe Biden has supported Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas attack but has called on Israel to do more to protect civilians and has faced growing pressure as he seeks re-election in November.

Blinken said that a weekend Israeli strike that ignited an inferno in a displacement camp outside Rafah, killing 45 people according to Palestinian officials, was “horrific”.

“Anyone who has seen the images cannot be deeply affected by them, just on a basic human level,” Blinken said.

“We have been very clear with Israel on the imperative — in this instance as in other instances — to immediately investigate and determine exactly what happened and why it happened, and if accountability is necessary to make sure that there is accountability,” Blinken said.

He said he could not verify a report that US weapons were used in the attack.

Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,171 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Ground staff members transport missiles near a Taiwan Air Force Mirage 2000-5 aircraft at Hsinchu Air Base, in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Taiwan scrambled jets and put missile, naval and land units on alert on May 23 over Chinese military exercises being conducted around the self-governing island democracy where a new President took office this week.

China’s military said its two-day exercises around Taiwan were punishment for separatist forces seeking independence. Beijing claims the island is part of China’s national territory and the People’s Liberation Army sends navy ships and warplanes into the Taiwan Strait and other areas around the island almost daily to wear down Taiwan’s defences and seek to intimidate its people, who firmly back their de facto independence.

China’s “irrational provocation has jeopardised regional peace and stability,” the island’s Defence Ministry said. It said Taiwan will seek no conflicts but “will not shy away from one.

“This pretext for conducting military exercises not only does not contribute to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, but also shows its hegemonic nature at heart,” the Ministry’s statement said.

In his inauguration address on Monday, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te called for Beijing to stop its military intimidation and pledged to “neither yield nor provoke” the mainland Communist Party leadership.

Lai has said he seeks dialogue with Beijing while maintaining Taiwan’s current status and avoiding conflicts that could draw in the island’s chief ally the U.S. and other regional partners such as Japan and Australia.

“The People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command said the land, navy and air exercises around Taiwan are meant to test the navy and air capabilities of the PLA units, as well as their joint strike abilities to hit targets and win control of the battlefield,” the command said on its official Weibo account.

“This is also a powerful punishment for the separatist forces seeking independence’ and a serious warning to external forces for interference and provocation,” the statement said.

The PLA also released a map of the intended exercise area, which surrounds Taiwan’s main island at five different points, as well as places such as Matsu and Kinmen, outlying islands that are closer to the Chinese mainland than Taiwan.

While China has termed the exercises as punishment for Taiwan’s election result, the Democratic Progressive Party has now run the island’s government for more than a decade, although the pro-China Nationalist Party took a one-seat majority in the Parliament.

Speaking in Australia, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Stephen Sklenka, the deputy commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, called on Asia-Pacific nations to condemn the Chinese military exercises.

“There’s no surprise whenever there’s an action that highlights Taiwan in the international sphere the Chinese feel compelled to make some kind of form of statement,” Mr. Sklenka told the National Press Club of Australia in the capital Canberra, in a reference to Monday’s Presidential inauguration.

“Just because we expect that behavior doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t condemn it, and we need to condemn it publicly. And it needs to come from us, but it also needs to come, I believe, from nations in the region. It’s one thing when the United States condemns the Chinese, but it has a far more powerful effect, I believe, when it comes from nations within this region,” Mr. Sklenka added.

Japan’s top envoy weighed in while visiting the U.S., saying Japan and Taiwan share values and principles, including freedom, democracy, basic rights and rule of law.

“(Taiwan) is our extremely important partner that we have close economic relations and exchanges of people, and is our precious friend,” Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa told reporters in Washington, where she held talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

She said the two Ministers discussed Taiwan and the importance of the Taiwan Strait, one of the world’s most important waterways for shipping, remaining peaceful.

Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on May 12, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Israeli tanks, under cover from heavy fire from air and ground, pushed further into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, May 13, 2024, residents and Hamas media said, while airstrikes hammered Rafah in the south.

Also read: Biden says U.S. won’t supply weapons for Israel to attack Rafah, in warning to ally

In Jabalia, tanks were trying to advance towards the heart of the camp, the biggest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps. Residents said tank shells were landing at the centre of the camp and that air strikes had destroyed clusters of houses.

Israeli troops forced hundreds of Palestinians housed in shelters to leave.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israel stepped up aerial and ground bombardments on the eastern areas of the city, killing people in an air strike on a house in the Brazil neighbourhood.

“Rafah, now a ghost town”

Residents said Israeli tanks are now stationed east of the Salahuddin Road that bisects the eastern part of the city, with the highway cut off by intense fighting. Residents added the eastern part of Rafah remained a “ghost town”.

Hamas armed wing said their fighters were engaged in gun battles with Israeli forces in one of the streets east of Rafah, and in the east of Jabalia.

In Israel, the military sounded sirens several times in areas near Gaza, warning of potential Palestinian cross-border rocket and or mortar launches.

Late on Saturday, the Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia were preventing Hamas, which rules Gaza, from re-establishing its military capabilities there.

“They were bombing everywhere, including near schools that are housing people who lost their houses,” Jabalia resident Saed, 45, told Reuters via a chat app on Sunday. “War is restarting, this is how it looks in Jabalia.”

The army sent tanks back into Zeitoun, as well as Al-Sabra, where residents also reported heavy bombardments that destroyed several houses, including high-rise residential buildings.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday warned that Israel was risking facing an insurgency in Gaza without a post-war plan for the enclave.

The death toll in Israel’s military operation in Gaza has now passed at least 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The bombardment has laid waste to the coastal enclave and caused a deep humanitarian crisis.

The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel says 620 soldiers have been killed in the fighting, more than half of them during the initial Hamas assault.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. File
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended a decision to pause a delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs over concerns they could be used in the Gazan city of Rafah, saying Israel lacked a “credible plan” to protect some 1.4 million civilians sheltering there.

Speaking to ABC News’ This Week, Mr. Blinken said that U.S. President Joe Biden remains determined to help Israel defend itself and that the shipment of 3,500 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was the only U.S. weapons package being withheld.

That could change, he said, if Israel launches a full-scale attack on Rafah.

Mr. Biden has made clear to Israel that if it “launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we are not going to be supporting and supplying,” Mr. Blinken said.

“We have real concerns about the way they are used,” he said. Israel needs to “have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we have not seen.”