US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Iran’s surviving stockpiles of enriched uranium did not concern him at all since they are buried underground and inaccessible, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that during the current war, Israel has “smashed” Tehran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons.

Both remarks appeared to potentially set the stage for the conclusion of the war, even as the US has been amassing troops for a potential ground operation in Iran.

In a phone interview with CBS, Trump said he “doesn’t even think about” Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, whose recovery experts say is critical to ensuring that Tehran can’t rush to a nuclear weapon.

“I don’t even think about it. I just know that it’s so deeply buried it’s going to be very hard for anybody” to reach it, Trump said, referencing last year’s US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities where the stockpiles are believed to be held.

“It’s down there deep… Even without a war, they haven’t been able to do it. So… it’s pretty safe. But, we’ll make a determination,” he added.

Asked when the war could wind down completely, Trump was again non-committal.

“It won’t be long,” he said.

“I would say we are two weeks ahead of schedule,” Trump claimed, even though the White House previously said the war would last four to six weeks, and the war is now in its fifth week.

Trump added that it would take Iran “10 years to rebuild” after the war.

Meanwhile, in a video statement, Netanyahu lauded the IDF’s accomplishments in the war against Iran last June and in the current campaign, including “hitting hard and distancing two existential threats.” Tehran, he specified, was “moving ahead to develop nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of ballistic missiles.”

“In Operation Rising Lion, we removed from upon us the immediate threat of Iran arming itself with a nuclear weapon and many ballistic missiles,” he said, referring to the June war. And in the current war, he added, “we brought a complementary achievement, by smashing the industrial capability of the regime to produce these tools of destruction.”

Netanyahu said Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader who was killed on the war’s first day, had wanted to bury those programs deep underground to make them immune from Israeli attacks.

The premier promised that “sooner or later,” the Iranian regime will fall — seemingly contradicting Trump’s assertion that the killing so far of a series of top Islamic Republic officials has already constituted “regime change.”

Netanyahu said that Iran’s “trillion dollar” investment in ballistic missiles, in nuclear enrichment and in supporting armed proxies “has gone down the drain.”

He summed up 10 major achievements he said were accomplished in the war, including the creation of “security zones” in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon that are patrolled by the IDF.

He claimed that Israel has hit Iran and its axis with “10 plagues,” a reference to the holiday of Passover, which begins Wednesday evening.

Netanyahu listed the blows Israel has delivered to terror groups Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and others in the West Bank, as well as to the ousted Assad regime in Syria. He also listed five “plagues” delivered to Iran — hitting its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, regime infrastructure, internal security forces, and senior leaders.

Pakistan, China unveil truce plan; US reportedly doesn’t oppose it

Also Tuesday, Pakistan and China issued a joint call for an immediate ceasefire followed by peace talks between the US and Iran.

PR No.85/2026 Five-Point Initiative of China and Pakistan for Restoring Peace and Stability in the Gulf and Middle East Region (Beijing, March 31,2026) pic.twitter.com/JAkSsro17a — Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) March 31, 2026

Five-Point Initiative of China and Pakistan for Restoring Peace and Stability in the Gulf and Middle East Region (Beijing, March 31,2026) pic.twitter.com/JAkSsro17a

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) March 31, 2026

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing, after which they issued their five-point initiative.

The plan also calls for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz and for a UN-backed peace agreement.

In a call with Israel’s Channel 12, Trump didn’t deny knowledge of the plan, saying only that talks about ending the war were progressing.

An official with knowledge of the details was cited by the outlet as saying that the White House does not oppose the Chinese-Pakistani initiative.

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