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Trump warns Iran in State of the Union

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US President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Iran in his State of the Union speech last night.

He said: “My administration has acted decisively to confront the world’s leading state sponsor of terror: the radical regime in Iran. They do bad, bad things. To ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons, I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal.”

He added: “And last fall, we put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a country. We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to America and threatens genocide against the Jewish people. We must never ignore the vile poison of antisemitism, or those who spread its venomous creed. With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.”

Speaking about Syria, President Trump said: “Great nations do not fight endless war. When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria. Today, we have liberated virtually all of that territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty killers. It is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home”. He said 7,000 US troops had died and more than $7tn (£5.4tn) had been spent by America on nearly two decades of war in the Middle East.

The President also referred to his administration’s efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. He said their approach is based on “principled realism” and not “discredited theories that have failed for decades to yield progress”.

Israel’s Channel 13 News reported yesterday that Jared Kushner will speak publicly for the first time about the US’s vision for a Middle East peace process at a summit in Warsaw on 14 February. He will be participating in a discussion hosted by former Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende. White House officials say they are most likely to postpone the release of the plan until after the Israeli elections on 9 April.