NEW YORK (Bernama-dpa): The US has begun talks with Iran on a permanent peace agreement, according to special envoy Steve Witkoff, German Press Agency (dpa) reported.

Speaking on Fox News late Tuesday (June 24), Witkoff said that the talks are "promising."

"We're already talking to each other, not just directly, but also through interlocutors," he said.

The possible agreement would envisage Iran having a civilian nuclear programme but without the enrichment of uranium on Iranian territory, he said.

Witkoff dismissed as "completely preposterous" media reports that the US attacks on Iran over the weekend had only set back the nuclear programme by a few months.

The centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow were "damaged or destroyed in a way that it'll be almost impossible for them to resurrect that programme for - in my view and in many other experts' views who have seen the raw data - it will take a period of years," he said.

On Tuesday, several US media outlets reported, citing an intelligence assessment, that only the entrances to the facility in Fordow, which was built deep into the mountain, had been destroyed, but not the underground buildings themselves.

Destroying Iran's nuclear capability was the key stated war aim of Israel's government when it launched attacks on June 13. The US then joined the assault on the nuclear facilities with massive "bunker-busting" bombs. - Bernama-dpa