Trump says 'bully' Iran humbled, will not revive nuclear program

The comments may signal stepped-up security cooperation between the two heavily-sanctioned powers deeply at odds with Washington and the West.

A troika of European powers triggered the reimposition of international sanctions on Iran last month, accusing Tehran of spurning diplomacy and nuclear inspections.

Russia and China sought to block the move at the UN Security Council on September 26 not enough member states supported their bid and the sanctions were reimposed the following day.

Asked in Moscow whether Russia would continue cooperating with Tehran on advanced military systems including the S-400 air defense system, Lavrov confirmed the relationship would advance.

“We will develop military-technical cooperation with Iran. After you noted the UN Security Council sanctions, we have no restrictions," RIA Novosti quoted Lavrov as saying.

"In full compliance with international law, we are engaged in supplying the equipment that the Islamic Republic of Iran needs.”

Iranian-designed drones have been key to Russia's war effort against Ukraine

While Iranian-designed drones have been key to Russia's war effort against Ukraine, Moscow provided little support during the brief summer war.

The two countries have signed a long-term security framework, but Russia’s restraint underscores the limits of its backing.

Earlier this month, leaked Russian defense documents indicated Iran had signed a €6 billion deal to buy 48 Su-35 fighter jets from Moscow, with deliveries expected between 2026 and 2028.

Last month, an Iranian lawmaker said Russian MiG-29 fighter jets had arrived in Iran as part of a short-term plan to bolster its air force, with more advanced Sukhoi Su-35 aircraft to follow gradually.

Iran has long sought to modernize its aging air force, which relies heavily on US-made jets purchased before the 1979 revolution and a small number of Russian and locally upgraded aircraft.

Western analysts say Iran’s request for 50 aircraft remains only partly fulfilled, with deliveries slowed by Russia’s own needs in Ukraine.

Tehran also faces vulnerability in air defenses after Israeli strikes earlier this year destroyed its last Russian-provided S-300 systems. Iran had acquired the four S-300 battalions from Russia in 2016.

"I think Iran will come along. They've been battered and bruised and, you know, they're out there. They need some help. There are big sanctions, as you know, tremendous sanctions," Trump told reporters alongside Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

"I'd love to take the sanctions off when they're ready to talk. But they can't really survive with those sanctions," he added ahead of a summit in Sharm al-Sheikh.

Trump on Monday clinched the release of 20 Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners in a complex international deal he says will bring the devastating two-year-old war in Gaza to a close.

A troika of European powers triggered the reimposition of international sanctions on Iran last month, accusing Tehran of spurning diplomacy and nuclear inspections.

Trump reinstated the so-called "maximum pressure" campaign of US sanctions when he resumed office in January.

Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, has rejected a US demand that it renounce domestic enrichment and sees sanctions as a violation of international law.

"I think Iran is going to be fine. I know so many Iranian people. They're great people. They're smart. Great, great people. Engineers, lawyers. I mean, they're academics. But they took a big hit," Trump added.

Trump has frequently spoken of wanting better ties with Tehran, even surprising Israeli lawmakers in a speech to the Israeli parliament earlier in the day when he opined: "It would be great if we made a peace deal with them, wouldn’t it be nice,"

The statement earned a smattering of applause from attendees.

Trump earlier this year gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to reach a nuclear deal, demanding it end all domestic uranium enrichment. Tehran denies seeking a weapon and sees enrichment as a right.

On June 13, the 61st day since talks began, Israel launched a surprise military campaign which killed nuclear scientists along with hundreds of military personnel and civilians.

On the ninth day of fighting, the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear sites which US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said "obliterated" the country's nuclear program.

The 12-day war ended with a US-brokered ceasefire on June 24 but talks between Washington and Tehran have yet to resume.

'I make deals'

Trump has long asserted his deal-making prowess and has cited the Abraham Accord normalization agreements between several Arab states and Israel as a main accomplishment of his first term.

Elected in part on pledges to keep the United States out of foreign wars, Trump took a risk and alienated some in his right-win base with the June 22 strikes, but has described the attacks as necessary to paving the way toward a Gaza deal.

"And frankly, if we didn't hit them with the nuclear, I don't think you would have been able to have this incredible, this deal, this once-in-a-lifetime deal. Nobody's ever said anything like what's happening today," Trump added.

The President has repeatedly said Iran had publicly supported the deal but a foreign ministry statement on Thursday offered only a measured blessing, saying the Islamic Republic supports any accord backed by Palestinians which ends Israeli "genocide".

"Iran did put out a statement that they support this deal very wholeheartedly. So that was, in itself, something," Trump added. "That's all I do in my life. I make deals. And they want to make a deal."

The shortage of pediatricians has reached alarming levels, said Ahmad Reza Rezaeizadeh and questioned why “general practitioners in Iran are not interested in specializing in pediatrics.” Many doctors now turn to the lucrative cosmetic field instead of entering essential specialties such as child medicine, he added.

Iran International reported on October 5 that with the rise of extreme beauty trends on social media, cosmetic surgery clinics across the country have seen a surge in demand.

Health officials have repeatedly sounded the alarm over unfilled positions in key medical disciplines. More than 80 percent of emergency medicine residencies and one-third of anesthesiology positions remain vacant, Ali Jafarian, deputy health minister said recently.

Nearly 29 percent of registered general practitioners in Iran are not practicing medicine, the state-affiliated Nour News website reported in September. Falling interest in six core specialties poses “a structural challenge to Iran’s healthcare system,” said Abbasali Rais Karami, head of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

Budget crisis and policy failure

The shortage, Rezaeizadeh said, reflects years of policy neglect and underinvestment. “We have patients in various cities but no specialist doctors. In the past four years, the infrastructure for medical education has not been developed. We need 600 trillion rials to expand medical training capacity,” he said.

Policymakers, he warned, remain focused on the number of general physicians rather than ensuring pathways for them to enter specialist programs. “No one is thinking about the prerequisites for admitting general practitioners to specialty training,” he said.

Eghtesad24 reported last year that the lack of pediatricians had already become a major challenge across several provinces, forcing families to travel to Tehran for their children’s medical care.

Pediatric graduates have dropped to less than one percent of total medical specialists since 2017, according to the Research Center of Iran’s parliament. The trend has been worsened by an accelerating wave of emigration among Iranian doctors.

Merit-based policies were vital to retaining talent, said Health Ministry official Shahin Akhondzadeh in September, noting that “most of the top 100 university entrance exam scorers in medical fields emigrate because proper conditions are not provided for them.”

Likening the bombing of Fordow to the 2020 killing of Quds Force chief, Qassem Soleimani, killed in an airstrike in Iraq, Netanyahu said to Trump: “You have changed the balance of power.”

Trump’s address came as Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza released all the remaining 20 living hostages held since October 7, 2023, when the militant group, designated a terrorist organization by countries such as the US, captured over 250 and killed over 1,200 mostly civilians.

The living hostages were back in Israel by lunchtime on Monday, while 28 other dead one were still due for release and the first of 1,950 Palestinian prisoners on terror charges were released from Israeli jails.

Since October 7, Netanyahu said, Iran and its allies around the region have all been weakened. The deaths of leaders including Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had shown the damage done to Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ - a group of allies united under the Palestinian cause and aiming for the destruction of Israel - which attacked the Jewish state from seven fronts in the wake of October 7.

“Our enemies now know the strength of Israel,” he said. Israel achieved “amazing victories over Hamas and the entire Iranian terror axis,” he added, saying that after the bloody 12-day war in June which saw death and destruction to both Iran and Israel, Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program has been “rolled back.”

Speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana spoke of the 'bravery' of Trump, saying the bombing of Iran’s three nuclear facilities, Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, in Operation Midnight Hammer, was a huge act of bravery after Israel launched Operation Rising Lion on June 13 when it launched air attacks which killed swathes of Iran's military leadership and top nuclear experts.

Ohana called Trump a “colossus who will be enshrined in the pantheon of history,” declaring that the Jewish people will remember him “thousands of years from now.”

"Iran, we are ready when you are and it will be the best decision Iran has ever made, and it’s gonna happen," he said in an address welcoming the first phase of a US-mediated Gaza peace plan.

"Because of us, the enemies of all civilization are in retreat, thanks to the bravery and skill of the Israeli defense forces and Operation Rising Lion," he said, referring to Israel's surprise air strikes on Iran on June 13 which triggered the 12-day war.

Praising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his first foreign address to a parliament during his second term, he said: "Great job and my people loved working with you. Many of Iran’s top terrorists including nuclear scientists and commanders have been extinguished from this earth."

During Operation Midnight Hammer, he said, which saw the US join the war and strike Iran's three main nuclear facilities, Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, "the US military flew seven of those beautiful B2 bombers, (we just ordered 28 more of them, a little updated version) and almost 100 other planes went with them, including fighter jets".

As 20 living hostages were released from Gaza after two years in Iran-backed Hamas captivity, Trump said that since he came to office, the US had finished eight wars in eight months, including the Iran war.

"We dropped 14 bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which has been confirmed to have obliterated those facilities and together we helped stop the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism from making nuclear weapons. If we didn’t do that, there would be a dark cloud over this [Gaza] deal. This was our last shot,” he said.

"If there were large scale nuclear weapons in the hands of iran we wouldn’t be here today. We took a big cloud off the Middle East and off Israel,” he said, referring to the other nations in the region who have for decades feared Iran’s nuclear capabilities. "They took a big hit."

As Trump now looks to expand the 2020 Abraham Accords, which saw Arab nations such as the United Arab Emirates normalize relations with Israel, he spoke of peace with Iran.

"It would be great if we made a peace deal with them, wouldn’t it be nice, I think they want to, I think they’re tired," he said.

"When someone told me they had started their nuclear program again, I said, they’re not starting anything, they want to survive, the last thing they want is to start digging holes again in mountains that just got blown up. But first we have to get Russia done."

Speaking of Iran's military allies in the region, he said that "the enemies of all civilization are in retreat".

"In Lebanon, the dagger of Hezbollah long aimed at Israel’s throat has been totally shattered and my administration is supporting the new president of Lebanon and permanently disarm Iran’s Hezbollah brigades," he said.

Since October 7, when Iran-backed Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,200 mostly civilians and taking more than 250 hostage, Iran and its allies across the region joined Hamas in attacking Israel from countries including Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

"By force of arms you’ve won," Trump told Israel's parliament after the longest Gaza war since Hamas took control of the strip in 2007 came to an end.