Trump is giving Iran talks "some space," US ambassador says

President Donald Trump is allowing talks with Iran to develop during this weekend’s apparent pause in strikes, a top US official said Sunday.

“What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving some talks some space. Talks are ongoing. They’re happening at every level, from the more technical aspect of it all the way to the highest levels,” Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

In a separate interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Waltz said diplomatic efforts have ramped up “particularly in the past few days.”

But in the NBC interview, Waltz reiterated Trump’s warning that the US military is “locked and loaded” as those negotiations play out and said the president is “keeping all options on the table.”

Waltz claimed internal divisions within the Iranian regime have made negotiations challenging.

Stockpile concerns: CNN has reported that in a Friday meeting at the White House where Trump and top officials discussed the possibility of a major escalation in the war, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine raised concerns about the US munitions stockpile, among other potential negative implications.

Waltz appeared to concede to NBC that “a lot of stockpiles were depleted,” casting blame on US provisions to Ukraine and what he described as the “depleted situation” the Trump administration inherited from its predecessor.

Pressed by host Kristen Welker on whether he would acknowledge that US stockpiles are depleted, he emphasised that the US military “has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be.”

-CNN