Washington, June 21 (IANS) The Trump administration on Sunday indicated that Iran may be allowed to retain a limited missile capability under a future agreement, signalling a major shift from its earlier assertion that Tehran needs to dismantle its missile programme entirely.

The remarks came as US Vice President JD Vance prepared to open talks with Iranian officials, with both sides seeking to build on a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) reached after months of military confrontation in the Gulf.

During an interview on ABC’s “This Week”, Energy Secretary Chris Wright suggested that the complete elimination of Iran’s missile arsenal was no longer the administration’s objective.

Asked about President Donald Trump’s recent comments that Iran could possess missiles in proportion to neighbouring countries, Wright said: “Need it go to zero? No, it probably doesn’t need to go to zero, is what the president’s saying.”

The President had earlier declared that the United States would “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated.”

More recently, however, Trump suggested a more limited goal.

“If Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say in relative proportion, I think, it’s okay,” Trump said when asked whether Iran could retain ballistic missiles under a future settlement.

Wright argued that the administration had already achieved much of its military objective.

“We’ve probably degraded their ability to make missiles by 90 per cent. That is a massive — I think you could call that an obliteration of their missile-making industry,” he said.

He added that Iran had spent decades building military capabilities that far exceeded those of many regional neighbours.

“In the meantime, they have been just massively more armed than all their neighbours,” Wright said. “That has been degraded massively.”

–IANS

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