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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25. / AFP, Yonhap News

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on June 25 that nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran will take place next week.

Speaking at a press conference following the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, Trump said, “The only thing we are asking is the same as before—something about nuclear weapons.”

However, he noted that a formal nuclear agreement with Iran may no longer be necessary, citing the U.S. airstrikes on June 22 (Iran local time), which he claimed had effectively destroyed three major Iranian nuclear facilities. “We might sign a deal, but I don’t think it’s necessary,” he said.

“I’ve said Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” Trump added. “We blew them up. Completely destroyed. So I don’t feel strongly about the deal.”

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Satellite images show Iran’s Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility on June 20 (left), before the U.S. airstrike, and on June 22 after the attack, captured by U.S. private satellite company Maxar Technologies. / Reuters, Yonhap News

Trump referred to Iran’s own admission that its nuclear facilities had been severely damaged and claimed the U.S. strikes led to a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. He compared the operation to the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan during World War II.

“I don’t want to invoke Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but in essence, it was the same thing,” he said. “That [the atomic bomb] ended that war, and this ended this war. Had we not taken them out, they’d still be fighting now.”

Nevertheless, Trump expressed concern that military conflict between Israel and Iran could resume. “It [the war] might start again, and maybe sometime soon,” he warned.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was present at the briefing, stressed the importance of direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. “It depends not just on Iran’s willingness to engage in peace, but on its willingness to negotiate directly with the United States without going through third or fourth countries,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call the previous day that Iran is “ready to resolve issues with the United States in accordance with international norms.”