Trump threatens intensified attacks if Iran peace talks fail
A tense Middle East standoff deepened as US President Donald Trump said American military forces would stay in the region until a peace agreement with Iran is secured, while warning that any failure to comply could trigger a...
A tense Middle East standoff deepened as US President Donald Trump said American military forces would stay in the region until a peace agreement with Iran is secured, while warning that any failure to comply could trigger a dramatic widening of the conflict. The prospect of further turmoil pushed oil prices higher as markets fretted over supply risks and continuing restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz.
In a social media post, Mr Trump said US ships, aircraft and personnel — backed by extra ammunition and weapons — would remain positioned to destroy, if required, what he described as “a substantially degraded enemy”. Even so, he said he believed a durable agreement would be reached and upheld.
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“If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the ‘Shootin’ Starts,’ bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before,” Mr Trump said, adding that despite what he called “fake rhetoric”, Iran had agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“In the meantime our great Military is Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest. AMERICA IS BACK!”
Iran says talks ‘unreasonable’ amid Israeli strikes on Lebanon
First responders at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s Corniche al-Mazraa neighbourhood
Mr Trump’s latest comments came after Israel launched the biggest co-ordinated strike of the war yesterday, killing more than 250 people in Lebanon. The assault drew a warning from Iran’s chief negotiator that Israel’s intensifying parallel war, combined with Washington’s demand that Tehran give up its nuclear ambitions, could imperil efforts to secure a permanent peace deal.
“In such a situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations were unreasonable,” Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammed Bager Qalibaf, said in a statement yesterday.
Israel’s wave of air strikes on Wednesday cast fresh doubt over attempts to calm the region, with mixed signals emerging over the reach of any ceasefire and starkly different objectives shaping peace talks due to begin on Saturday in Pakistan.
The United States and Israel maintain that Lebanon does not fall under the agreement, but Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said any halt to fighting in Lebanon is a necessary condition for Tehran’s deal with Washington.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said it fired rockets early today at the small kibbutz of Manara, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire and warning of more attacks unless there was an end to what it called “Israeli-American aggression”.
US did not agree that ceasefire would cover Lebanon – Vance
Pakistan’s foreign ministry condemned the Israeli operations today, saying they “undermine international efforts to establish peace and stability”.
French President Emmanuel Macron had earlier said Lebanon “must be fully covered” by the ceasefire, while British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said the UK “strongly” wanted Lebanon to be included in any Middle East truce.
The gap between the two sides also appeared wide on Iran’s nuclear programme — an issue Mr Trump has cited as one of the reasons for war.
Mr Trump said Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium, which can be turned into nuclear weapons, and the White House said Tehran had indicated it would hand over its existing stockpiles.
“The United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried … Nuclear ‘Dust,” Mr Trump said on social media yesterday.
Mr Qalibaf, however, said the terms of the ceasefire still allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium.
Iran’s delegation for the talks is due to arrive in Islamabad tonight.
“Despite scepticism of Iranian public opinion due to repeated ceasefire violations by Israeli regime … Iranian delegation arrives tonight in Islamabad for serious talks based on 10 points proposed by Iran,” Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam said in a post on X on Thursday.
‘Freedom of navigation means navigation must be free’
Oil prices rose today as investors focused on the fragility of the truce and the heightened geopolitical threat to Middle East energy supplies, with little confidence that restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz would be lifted quickly.
There was little evidence that the strait had reopened in any meaningful sense after the agreement, with Iran still asserting control over the crucial passage — which carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply — and demanding tolls for safe transit.
Iran’s newly displayed capacity to choke off Gulf energy flows through its hold over the strait, despite decades of vast US military spending in the region, underlines how the conflict has already shifted the balance of power in the Gulf.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy published a map today showing alternative shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz designed to help vessels avoid naval mines, the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA reported.
The map points to Iranian preparations to reopen the Strait, but the presence of sea mines means the waterway is still hazardous and that a full reopening could take days, if not longer.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is expected to say today that passage through the Strait of Hormuz must remain toll-free, pushing back against Iran’s effort to assert control over a route long regarded as an international waterway.
“The fundamental freedoms of the seas must not be unilaterally withdrawn or sold off to individual bidders. Nor can there be any place for tolls on an international waterway,” Cooper will say in an annual foreign policy speech in London, according to advance extracts.
“Freedom of navigation means navigation must be free.”
Read More:Bloody day in Lebanon puts fragile ceasefire at riskLatest Middle East stories
Additional reporting: Edmund Heaphy