Washington DC [US], October 9 (ANI): US President Donald Trump spoke about the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities earlier this year, noting that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons and if that had happened then the Gaza peace deal would not have been possible.

He made the remarks in an interview to Fox News.

Trump said, 'Iran was about one month, maybe two months away from having a nuclear weapon, and if I allowed that to happen, this deal would not have been possible -- or if it was, it would have a tremendous cloud over it because you have a country with a nuclear weapon that was obviously not very friendly and the power of nuclear weapons is something we shouldn't even be talking about... so it's a very much different Iran'.

He further added that the efforts towards the peace deal brought the world together and had Iran gotten the nuclear weapon , there would have been a dark cloud over the peace progress.

The White House shared a video on Thursday where US President Donald Trump was speaking to the family members of the hostages in Gaza and thanked him for the peace deal.

https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/197611655843610635

Earlier, Qatar's Prime Minister and official Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Majed Al Ansari, on Thursday said that an agreement was reached on all the provisions and implementation mechanisms of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement. Ansari said that the deal covered the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has released its first public statement since US President Trump said the Palestinian group and Israel had 'signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan'.

In a post on Telegram, Hamas announced the 'conclusion of an agreement stipulating an end to the war on Gaza, the occupation's withdrawal from it, the entry of aid, and a prisoner exchange', as per Al Jazeera. (ANI)