World
Protesters retreat as Sri Lankan president sends resignation
Protesters retreated from government buildings Thursday in Sri Lanka, restoring a tenuous calm to the economically crippled country, and the embattled president at last emailed the resignation that demonstrators have sought for months.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled a day earlier under pressure from protesters enraged by the island nation’s economic collapse. He emailed his resignation a day later than promised, according to an official.
But with a fractured opposition and confusion over who is in charge, a solution to the country's many woes seemed no closer following Rajapaksa’s departure. And the president has further angered the crowds by making his prime minister the acting leader.
Protesters have pressed for both men to leave and for a unity government to address the economic calamity that has triggered widespread shortages of food, fuel and other necessities.
The tentative way the resignation unfolded only added to turmoil. An aide to the speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament issued a statement that said the speaker had received the president's resignation through the Sri Lankan Embassy in Singapore, but there was no immediate official announcement.
Also read: Sri Lankan president emails resignation, official says
An announcement was planned for Friday after the authenticity and legality of the letter are verified, the statement said.
As word of the resignation spread, jubilant crowds gathered near the president’s office to celebrate. Dozens of people danced and cheered and waved the Sri Lankan flag, and two men sang in Sinhalese on a small stage.
The mood was festive, with people hooting and swaying to music while others chanted into a microphone that they wanted better governance.
“To be validated like this is massive,” said Viraga Perera, an engineer who has been protesting since April. "On a global scale, we have led a movement that toppled a president with minimal force and violence. It’s a mix of victory and relief.”
The protesters accuse Rajapaksa and his powerful political family of siphoning money from government coffers for years and his administration of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy. The family has denied the corruption allegations, but Rajapaksa acknowledged that some of his policies contributed to the meltdown.
Months of protests reached a frenzied peak over the weekend when demonstrators stormed the president’s home and office and the official residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. On Wednesday, they seized Wickremesinghe's office.
Images of protesters inside the buildings — lounging on elegant sofas and beds, posing at officials' desks and touring the opulent settings — captured the world's attention.
They initially vowed to hold those places until a new government was in place, but the movement shifted tactics Thursday, apparently concerned that any escalation in violence could undermine their message following clashes the previous night outside the Parliament that left dozens injured.
“The fear was that there could be a crack in the trust they held for the struggle,” said Nuzly, a protest leader who goes by only one name. “We’ve shown what power of the people can do, but it doesn’t mean we have to occupy these places.”
Devinda Kodagode, another protest leader, told The Associated Press they planned to vacate official buildings after Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana said he was exploring legal options for the country in the wake of Rajapaksa's departure.
Visaka Jayaweer, a performing artist, described the bittersweet moment of closing the gate to the presidential palace after the crowds cleared out.
“Taking over his residence was a great moment. It showed just how much we wanted him to step down. But it is also a great relief" to leave, she said. "We were worried if people would act out — many were angry to see the luxury he had been living in when they were outside, struggling to buy milk for their children.”
Also read: Sri Lankan armed forces empowered to use force following clashes
The country remains a powder keg, and the military warned Thursday that it had powers to respond in case of chaos — a message some found concerning.
Troops in green uniforms and camouflage vests arrived in armored vehicles to reinforce barricades around the Parliament, while protesters vowed to continue holding rallies outside the president’s office until a new government was in place.
The government announced another curfew in the capital of Colombo and its suburbs until early Friday. Some people ignored a previous curfew, but many others rarely leave their homes anyway because of fuel shortages.
Rajapaksa and his wife fled Sri Lanka early Wednesday for the Maldives, slipping away in the night aboard a military plane. On Thursday, he went to Singapore, according to the city-state’s Foreign Ministry. It said he had not requested asylum.
Since Sri Lankan presidents are protected from arrest while in power it’s likely Rajapaksa wanted to plan his departure while he still had constitutional immunity and access to the plane.
The protests underscored the dramatic fall of the Rajapaksa political clan that has ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades.
As a military strategist whose brutal campaign helped end the country's 26-year civil war, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, who was president at the time, were hailed by the island’s Buddhist Sinhalese majority. Despite accusations of wartime atrocities, including ordering military attacks on ethnic Tamil civilians and abducting journalists, Rajapaksa remained popular among many Sri Lankans. He has continually denied the allegations.
The shortages of basic necessities have sown despair among Sri Lanka’s 22 million people. The country’s rapid decline was all the more shocking because, before the recent crisis, the economy had been expanding, with a growing, comfortable middle class.
It was not immediately clear if Singapore would be Rajapaksa's final destination, but he has previously sought medical care there, including undergoing heart surgery.
Sri Lankan lawmakers have agreed to elect a new president from their ranks on July 20 who will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.
Russian missiles kill at least 23 in Ukraine, wound over 100
Russian missiles struck a city in central Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 100 others far from the front lines, Ukrainian authorities said. Ukraine's president accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in locations without military value.
Officials said Kalibr cruise missiles fired from a Russian ship in the Black Sea damaged a medical clinic, offices, stores and residential buildings in Vinnytsia, a city 268 kilometers (167 miles) southwest of the capital, Kyiv. Vinnytsia region Gov. Serhiy Borzov said Ukrainian air defenses downed two of the four incoming Russian missiles.
National Police Chief Ihor Klymenko said only six bodies had been identified so far, while 39 people were still missing. Three children younger than 10 where among the dead. Of the 66 people hospitalized, five remained in critical condition while 34 sustained severe injuries, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
“It was a building of a medical organization. When the first rocket hit it, glass fell from my windows," said Vinnytsia resident Svitlana Kubas, 74. “And when the second wave came, it was so deafening that my head is still buzzing. It tore out the very outermost door, tore it right through the holes.”
Borzov said 36 apartment buildings were damaged and residents have been evacuated. Along with hitting buildings, the missiles ignited a fire that spread to 50 cars in a parking lot, officials said.
“These are quite high-precision missiles. ... They knew where they were hitting,” Borzov told the AP.
Russia denied targeting civilians.
Also read: Minister: Ukraine needs assurances to resume grain exports
“Russia only strikes at military targets in Ukraine. The strike on Vinnytsia targeted an officers’ residence, where preparations by Ukrainian armed forces were underway,” Evgeny Varganov, a member of Russia’s permanent U.N. mission, said in an address to the chamber.
Among the buildings damaged in the strike was the House of Officers, a Soviet-era concert hall.
Margarita Simonyan, head of the state-controlled Russian television network RT, said on her messaging app channel that military officials told her a building in Vinnytsia was targeted because it housed Ukrainian “Nazis.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his call for Russia to be declared a state sponsor of terrorism. The strike happened as government officials from about 40 countries met in The Hague, Netherlands, to discuss coordinating investigations and prosecutions of potential war crimes committed in Ukraine.
“No other country in the world represents such a terrorist threat as Russia,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “No other country in the world allows itself every day to use cruise missiles and rocket artillery to destroy cities and ordinary human life."
Zelenskyy said that among those killed was a 4-year-old girl named Liza, whose mother was badly wounded. A video of the little girl, twirling in a lavender dress in a field of lavender, was widely shared on social media.
“Today, our hearts are bleeding, and our eyes are full of tears because our family of many thousands has lost one of our own,” the charity Down Syndrome wrote. It said: “They were just on their way from a speech therapy class, and they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Zelenskyy's wife later posted that she had met this “wonderful girl” while filming a Christmas video with a group of children, who were given oversized ornaments to paint.
Also read: Ukraine reports striking Russian ammunition depot in south
“The little mischievous girl then managed in a half an hour to paint not only herself, her holiday dress, but also all the other children, me, the cameramen and the director ... Look at her alive, please,” Olena Zelenska wrote in a note accompanying the video.
Zelenskyy called for creating a mechanism for confiscating Russian assets around the world and using them to compensate the victims of “Russian terror.”
Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky echoed Zelenskyy, calling the missile attack a “war crime" intended to intimidate Ukrainians while the country's forces hold out in the east.
He said several dozen people were detained for questioning on suspicion that the Russian forces had received targeting assistance from someone on the ground.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv issued a security alert late Thursday urging all U.S. citizens remaining in Ukraine to leave immediately. The alert, which appeared to be in response to the Vinnytsia attack, asserted that large gatherings and organized events “may serve as Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine, including its western regions.”
Vinnytsia is one of Ukraine's largest cities, with a prewar population of 370,000. Thousands of people from eastern Ukraine, where Russia has concentrated its offensive, have fled there since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Kateryna Popova said she saw many injured people lying on the street after the missiles struck. Popova had fled from Kharkiv in March in search of safety in “quiet” Vinnytsia. But the missile attack changed all that.
“We did not expect this. Now we feel like we don’t have a home again,” she said.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the attack mirrors previous ones on residential areas that Moscow has launched “to try to pressure Kyiv to make some concessions.”
"Russia has used the same tactics when it hit the Odesa region, Kremenchuk, Chasiv Yar and other areas," Zhdanov said. “The Kremlin wants to show that it will keep using unconventional methods of war and kill civilians in defiance of Kyiv and the entire international community.”
Before the missiles hit Vinnytsia, the president’s office reported the deaths of five civilians and the wounding of eight more in Russian attacks over the past day. One person was wounded when a missile damaged several buildings in the southern city of Mykolaiv early Thursday. A missile attack on Wednesday killed at least five people in the city.
Russian forces also continued artillery and missile attacks in eastern Ukraine, primarily in the Donetsk region after overtaking the adjacent Luhansk region. The two regions make up the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking area of steel factories, mines and other industries that powered Ukraine's economy.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko, meanwhile, urged residents to evacuate as “quickly as possible.”
“We are urging civilians to leave the region, where electricity, water and gas are in short supply after the Russian shelling,” Kyrylenko said in televised remarks. “The fighting is intensifying, and people should stop risking their lives and leave the region.”
On the battlefront, Russian and Ukrainian militaries are seeking to replenish their depleted stocks of unmanned aerial vehicles to pinpoint enemy positions and guide artillery strikes.
Both sides are looking to procure jamming-resistant, advanced drones that could offer a decisive edge in battle. Ukrainian officials say the demand for such technology is “immense” with crowdfunding efforts underway to raise the necessary cash.
Ivana Trump, first wife of former president, dies at 73
Ivana Trump, a skier-turned-businesswoman who formed half of a publicity power couple in the 1980s as the first wife of former President Donald Trump and mother of his oldest children, has died in New York City, her family announced Thursday. She was 73.
The former president posted on his social media app that she died at her Manhattan home.
“She was a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life,” he wrote on Truth Social. The couple shared three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric.
“She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her,” he wrote. “Rest In Peace, Ivana!”
Read: Italian Premier Draghi's resignation is rebuffed , for now
Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that police are investigating whether Ivana Trump fell down the stairs and believe her death was accidental.
She was found unconscious near a staircase in the home, the people said. The people could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. The medical examiner’s office will determine an official cause of death.
“It’s been a very sad day, a very sad day,” Eric Trump said as he left his mother’s home near Central Park.
In a statement, he and his siblings called her “an incredible woman — a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty and caring mother and friend.”
Italian Premier Draghi's resignation is rebuffed , for now
Italian Premier Mario Draghi offered to step down Thursday after a populist coalition partner refused to vote for a key bill in Parliament, but the nation's president quickly rebuffed him, leaving one of Western Europe's main leaders at the helm for now.
The rejection of the tendered resignation left in limbo the future of Draghi's 17-month-old government, officially known as a national unity coalition, but with its survival sorely tested by increasingly sharp divergences within the coalition.
Draghi’s broad coalition government — which includes parties from the right, the left, the center and the populist 5-Star Movement — was designed to help Italy recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Hours earlier Thursday, Draghi and his government won a confidence vote, 172-39, in the Senate despite the refusal by the 5-Star Movement to back the bill, which earmarked 26 billion euros (dollars) to help consumers and industries struggling with soaring energy prices. But the dramatic snub, orchestrated by 5-Star leader Giuseppe Conte, Draghi’s predecessor, did its damage.
Shortly before heading to the Quirinal presidential palace to tender his resignation, Draghi declared: “The majority of national unity that has sustained this government from its creation doesn’t exist any more."
Also read: Italy keen to supply LNG to Bangladesh
But President Sergio Mattarella told Draghi to instead go back to Parliament and see if he can still garner solid support, a palace statement said.
The next showdown in Parliament is set for July 20, when Draghi will formally pitch for support ahead of a confidence vote — this time not on a specific bill but on his government's very viability.
“Now there are five days to work so that Parliament confirms its confidence in the Draghi government and Italy emerges as rapidly as possible from the dramatic unraveling” of the last hours, tweeted Enrico Letta, the head of the Democratic Party, a Draghi ally and a former premier.
In Brussels, the European Union's finance commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, a former Italian premier, said officials there were “following with worried astonishment” the potential unraveling of Draghi's coalition.
The uncertainty over Draghi's staying power also appeared to rattle the markets. The Milan stock exchange lost 3.44% on Thursday.
If Draghi can't solidly stitch back together a durable coalition, Mattarella could pull the plug on Parliament, setting the stage for an early election as soon as late September. Currently, Parliament’s term expires in spring 2023.
Also read: Tourists, rejoice! Italy, Greece relax COVID-19 restrictions
Mattarella had tapped the former European Central Bank chief — who was known as “Super Mario” for his “whatever it takes” rescue of the euro — to pull Italy out of the pandemic and lay the groundwork to make use of billions in European Union pandemic recovery funds.
The 5-Stars, who have lost significant support in recent local elections and have slumped in opinion polls, are in disarray.
In the measure Thursday, the 5-Stars opposed a provision to allow Rome to operate a garbage incinerator on the outskirts of the chronically trash-choked Italian capital.
In the debate, some senators praised Draghi as a pivotal figure in Europe as Russia wages war against Ukraine, especially with the impending departure of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Center-right Sen. Antonio Saccone thundered that the 5-Stars were “doing a favor” to Russian President Vladimir Putin by causing political instability.
Recently, Conte had waffled for a while over whether to keep supporting military aid for Ukraine, but eventually backed Draghi on pledging fresh assistance.
Being in a government “is not like picking up a menu and deciding, antipasto, no, gelato, yes,″ said Emma Bonino, who leads a tiny pro-Europe party.
Draghi has governed with the support of virtually all of Italy’s main parties, with the exception of the fast-rising far-right Brothers of Italy party. The potential implosion of Draghi's coalition triggered fresh demands by the party's leader, Giorgia Meloni, for an early election that she hopes will be her springboard to becoming Italy's first woman premier.
Giovanni Orsina, a history professor and director of the school of government at Rome's LUISS university, correctly predicted that Mattarella would ask Draghi to find a new, workable majority.
“We've got the pandemic, we got the war, we have inflation, we have the energy crisis. So certainly this is not a good moment,” Orsina said. "Mattarella believes, rightly, that his mission is to safeguard stability.”
Among Draghi’s achievements has been keeping Italy on track with reforms that the EU has made a condition for the country to receive 200 billion euros (dollars) in pandemic recovery assistance. Much of that EU funding is already allocated, suggesting it won't be lost even amid government instability.
25 million kids missed routine vaccinations because of COVID
About 25 million children worldwide have missed out on routine immunizations against common diseases like diptheria, largely because the coronavirus pandemic disrupted regular health services or triggered misinformation about vaccines, according to the U.N.
In a new report published Friday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said their figures show 25 million children last year failed to get vaccinated against diptheria, tetanus and pertussis, a marker for childhood immunization coverage, continuing a downward trend that began in 2019.
“This is a red alert for child health,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s Executive Director.
“We are witnessing the largest sustained drop in childhood immunization in a generation,” she said, adding that the consequences would be measured in lives lost.
Data showed the vast majority of the children who failed to get immunized were living in developing countries, namely Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and the Philippines. While vaccine coverage fell in every world region, the worst effects were seen in East Asia and the Pacific.
Read: Bangladesh gets another 4 mn doses of COVID-19 vaccine from US
Experts said this “historic backsliding” in vaccination coverage was especially disturbing since it was occurring as rates of severe malnutrition were rising. Malnourished children typically have weaker immune systems and infections like measles can often prove fatal to them.
“The convergence of a hunger crisis with a growing immunization gap threatens to create the conditions for a child survival crisis,” the U.N. said.
Scientists said low vaccine coverage rates had already resulted in preventable outbreaks of diseases like measles and polio. In March 2020, WHO and partners asked countries to suspend their polio eradication efforts amid the accelerating COVID-19 pandemic. There have since been dozens of polio epidemics in more than 30 countries.
“This is particularly tragic as tremendous progress was made in the two decades before the COVID pandemic to improve childhood vaccination rates globally,” said Helen Bedford, a professor of children’s health at University College London, who was not connected to the U.N. report. She said the news was shocking but not surprising, noting that immunization services are frequently an “early casualty” of major social or economic disasters.
Dr. David Elliman, a consultant pediatrician at Britain’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, said it was critical to reverse the declining vaccination trend among children.
“The effects of what happens in one part of the world can ripple out to affect the whole globe,” he said in a statement, noting the rapid spread of COVID-19 and more recently, monkeypox. “Whether we act on the basis of ethics or ‘enlightened self interest’, we must put (children) top of our list of priorities.”
5 die due to cholera outbreak in India's Maharashtra
Cholera outbreak has claimed the lives of five persons from a single district in India's western state of Maharashtra and another 181 people have fallen sick, state government officials said Thursday.
The water-borne disease outbreak was found in four villages in Amravati district of the state, 669 km east of Mumbai.
Read: 6,789 people infected with cholera in Ethiopia: UN
Maharashtra's state government has deployed a team to investigate the outbreak and provide guidance, and the state's public health department has sounded alert across the state asking all districts to take adequate steps to curb the spread of the disease amid rains and floods.
India reports 1st monkeypox case, states asked to test all suspected cases
India on Thursday reported the first monkeypox case in the southern state of Kerala with the infected person being a traveler who reached the state on July 12, an official said at the federal health ministry.
After the detection of the first monkeypox case, the federal government is rushing a multi-disciplinary team of senior doctors to Kerala to help the state government in investigating the outbreak and initiate requisite public health measures, said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary (Public Health) at the federal health ministry.
Earlier during the day, the federal government had asked all the state governments to ensure screening and testing of all suspected monkeypox cases at all entry points and in the community as part of the country's overall preparedness against the disease, local media reported on Thursday.
Read: Monkeypox cases triple in Europe, WHO says, Africa concerned
The federal government also asked the states to identify hospitals and ensure adequate human resources and logistic support to manage any suspected or confirmed Monkeypox cases. ■
Sri Lankan president emails resignation, official says
Sri Lankan protesters retreated from government buildings they seized and military troops reinforced security at the Parliament on Thursday, establishing a tenuous calm in a country in both economic meltdown and political limbo.
Embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled a day earlier under pressure from demonstrators furious over the island nation’s economic collapse. But he failed to resign as promised — and further angered the crowds by making his prime minister acting leader.
Protesters want both men out and a unity government in to address an economic calamity that has triggered widespread shortages of food, fuel and other necessities. But with a fractured opposition and confusion over who was in charge, a solution seemed no closer following Rajapaksa’s departure. Potentially adding to the turmoil, the president was on the move again Thursday, flying from the Maldives to Singapore.
The protesters accuse Rajapaksa and his powerful political family of siphoning money from government coffers for years and his administration of hastening the country’s collapse by mismanaging the economy. The family has denied the corruption allegations, but Rajapaksa acknowledged some of his policies contributed to the meltdown.
Read: Sri Lankan armed forces empowered to use force following clashes
Months of protests reached a frenzied peak over the weekend when demonstrators stormed the president’s home and office and the official residence of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. On Wednesday, they seized Wickremesinghe's office.
Images of protesters inside the buildings — lounging on elegant sofas and beds, posing at officials' desks and touring the opulent settings — have captured the world's attention.
They initially vowed to hold these places until a new government was in place, but the movement shifted tactics Thursday, apparently concerned that any escalation in violence could undermine their message following clashes the previous night outside the Parliament that left dozens injured.
“The fear was that there could be a crack in the trust they held for the struggle,” said Nuzly, a protest leader who goes by only one name. “We’ve shown what power of the people can do, but it doesn’t mean we have to occupy these places.”
Read: Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa arrives in Singapore
Devinda Kodagode, another protest leader, told The Associated Press they planned to vacate official buildings after the Parliament speaker said he was exploring legal options for the country given that Rajapaksa left without submitting his resignation letter as promised.
Protesters withdrew from the prime minister's residence and the president's, where some moved a red carpet they had rolled up back into place. Others held a news conference to announce they were also pulling out of the prime minister's office.
Visaka Jayaweer, a performing artist, described the bittersweet moment of closing the gate to the presidential palace after the crowds cleared out.
“Taking over his residence was a great moment, it showed just how much we wanted him to step down. But it is also a great relief" to leave, she said. "We were worried if people would act out – many were angry to see the luxury he had been living in when they were outside, struggling to buy milk for their children.”
The country remains a powder keg, and the military warned Thursday it had powers to respond in case of chaos — a message some found concerning.
Troops in green military uniforms and camouflage vests arrived in armored personnel carriers to reinforce barricades around the Parliament, while protesters vowed they would continue to rally outside the president’s office until a new government was in place.
The government announced another curfew in the capital Colombo and its suburbs in the afternoon until 5 a.m. Friday. It's unclear what effect a curfew would have: Some ignored a previous one, but many others rarely leave their homes anyway because of fuel shortages.
Rajapaksa and his wife fled Sri Lanka early Wednesday for the Maldives, slipping away in the night aboard an air force plane. On Thursday, he went to Singapore, according to the city-state’s Foreign Ministry. It said he had not requested asylum.
Also read: Sri Lanka: Will the army be forced to act?
Since Sri Lankan presidents are protected from arrest while in power it’s likely Rajapaksa wanted to plan his departure while he still had constitutional immunity and access to a military plane.
The political impasse threatens to worsen the bankrupt nation’s economic collapse since the absence of an alternative government could delay a hoped-for bailout from the International Monetary Fund. In the meantime, the country is relying on aid from India and China.
The shortages of basic necessities have sown despair among Sri Lanka’s 22 million people. The country’s rapid decline was all the more shocking because, before the recent crisis, the economy had been expanding, with a growing, comfortable middle class.
It was not immediately clear if Singapore would be Rajapaksa's final destination, but he has previously sought medical care there, including undergoing heart surgery.
Assuming that Rajapaksa resigns as promised, Sri Lankan lawmakers have agreed to elect a new president from their ranks on July 20 who will serve the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term, which ends in 2024. That person could potentially appoint a new prime minister, who would then have to be approved by Parliament.
Sri Lankan armed forces empowered to use force following clashes
The Sri Lankan armed forces are empowered to use force if the situation deems necessary to protect public property, key installations, vulnerable points and human lives, the army announced on Thursday.
The army said in a statement that certain sections of the protesters deviated from the proclaimed "non-violent" approach and continued to breach law and order as of Wednesday afternoon.
The army said protesters resorted to violence by trying to place the parliament complex as well as the speaker's official residence under siege while destroying police barricades through heavy machinery brought in there.
Sri Lanka's Department of Government Information on Thursday said that a curfew has been declared in the Colombo district from noon on Thursday till 5 a.m. local time on Friday following clashes between protesters and security forces a day earlier.
Biden says US won’t wait ‘forever’ for Iran on nuclear deal
President Joe Biden said Thursday that the United States is “not going to wait forever” for Iran to rejoin a dormant nuclear deal, a day after saying he’d be willing to use force against Tehran as a last resort, if necessary.
At a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid following private talks about Iran’s rapidly progressing nuclear program, Biden said the U.S. had laid out for the Iranian leadership a path to return to the nuclear deal and was still waiting for a response.
“When that will come, I’m not certain,” Biden said. “But we’re not going to wait forever.”
Even as he suggested that his patience with Iran was running low, Biden held out hope that Iran can be persuaded to rejoin the agreement. “I continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve this outcome,” he said.
Biden’s desire for a diplomatic solution contrasted with Lapid, who said Iran must face a real threat of force in order to give up on its nuclear ambition.
“The Iranian regime must know that if they continue to deceive the world they will pay a heavy price,” Lapid said at the news conference. “The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table.”
Lapid suggested that he and Biden were in agreement, despite his tougher rhetoric toward Iran.
“I don’t think there’s a light between us,” he said. “We cannot allow Iran to become nuclear.”
Resurrecting the Iran nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama’s administration and abandoned by Donald Trump in 2018 was a key priority for Biden as he entered office. But administration officials have become increasingly pessimistic about the chances of getting Tehran back into compliance.
Israeli officials have sought to use Biden’s first visit to the Middle East as president to underscore that Iran’s nuclear program has progressed too far and encourage the Biden administration to scuttle efforts to revive a 2015 agreement with Iran to limit its development.
Read: Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa arrives in Singapore
Israel opposed the original nuclear deal, reached under Obama in 2015, because its limitations on Iran’s nuclear enrichment would expire and the agreement didn’t address Iran’s ballistic missile program or military activities in the region.
Instead of the U.S. reentering the deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018, Israel would prefer strict sanctions in hopes of leading to a more sweeping accord.
The U.S. president, who is set to travel to Saudi Arabia on Friday, said he also stressed to Lapid the importance of Israel becoming “totally integrated” in the region.
Their one-on-one talks marked the centerpiece of a 48-hour visit by Biden aimed at strengthening already tight relations between the U.S and Israel. The leaders issued a joint declaration emphasizing military cooperation and a commitment to preventing Iran, which Israel considers an enemy, from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
In the joint statement, the United States said it is ready to use “all elements of its national power” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.
Biden, in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 that aired Wednesday, offered strong assurances of his determination to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, saying he’d be willing to use force as a “last resort” if necessary.
Iran announced last week that it has enriched uranium to 60% purity, a technical step away from weapons-grade quality.
The joint declaration could hold important symbolic importance for Biden’s upcoming meeting with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia as he seeks to strengthen a regionwide alliance against Iran.
“I talked about how important it was … for Israel to be totally integrated in the region,” Biden said after his one-on-one meeting with Lapid on Thursday.
The president heads to Saudi Arabia after calling the kingdom a “pariah” nation as a candidate and releasing a U.S. intelligence finding last year that showed the kingdom’s defacto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, like approved the killing of of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based writer.
Biden declined to commit to mentioning Khashoggi’s murder when he meets with the crown prince.
“I always bring up human rights,” Biden said at the news conference. “But my position on Khashoggi has been so clear. If anyone doesn’t understand it, in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else, then they haven’t been around for a while.” He did not reiterate his position.