TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Thursday the United States is in no rush to end the war with Iran but “the clock is ticking” for the Islamic republic, as a third aircraft carrier arrived in the Middle East. He said a deal with Iran will only be made when it is “appropriate and good” for the United States.
While Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian pledged unity behind Supreme Leader, and warned “aggressor” will regret. In a post on X, he said, “There are no “hardliners” or “moderates” we are all Iranians and revolutionaries”
While Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in a post on X, warned public of “enemy” media campaign targeting unity.
Iranian media reported blasts over the capital Tehran, a first since an increasingly tenuous ceasefire in the Middle East war came into effect two weeks ago. It was not clear what caused the blasts, though an Israeli security source told AFP that their country was not currently striking Iran.
Prospective peace talks in Pakistan were hanging in the balance, meanwhile, with no sign of a return to diplomacy to end a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.
Since Trump indefinitely extended a ceasefire in the Middle East war, the US and Iran have shifted their focus to Hormuz, a blockaded waterway through which a fifth of oil and liquefied natural gas exports ordinarily flow.
“I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn´t—The clock is ticking!” Trump said on social media, adding that Iran´s military was destroyed and “their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse.”
President Trump said that he would not use a nuclear weapon in the war against Iran. “Why would I use a nuclear weapon? We’ve totally, in a very conventional way, decimated them without it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked whether he would use such a weapon.
“No, I wouldn’t use it. A nuclear weapon should never be allowed to be used by anybody,” he added. Asked how long he was willing to wait for a long-term peace deal with Iran, Trump said, “Don’t rush me.”
He said Iran might have loaded up their weaponry “a little bit” during the two-week ceasefire, but added that the US military could knock that out in about one day.
“Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone, their anti-aircraft is gone ...maybe they loaded up a little bit during the two-week hiatus, but we’ll knock that out about one day, if they did,” Trump added. “I want to make the best deal. I could make a deal right now ... but I don’t want to do that. I want to have it everlasting,” Trump said.
Trump warned that Americans should expect higher fuel prices in the near term saying it was a small price to pay for the US-Israeli war. Trump said consumers would face increased costs “for a little while”.
The US president earlier ordered the US Navy to destroy any Iranian boat caught laying mines in Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded since the start of the war that spread across the region following a massive US-Israeli attack on the Islamic republic.
The USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, the US military said Thursday, bringing the number of the massive American warships operating in the region to three.
A second carrier was operating in the Red Sea on Thursday, while a third is also in the region, according to social media posts by CENTCOM.
Iran´s state news agency IRNA said the “sound of air defence firing” was heard in western Tehran, while the Mehr news agency reported that air defence systems were activated in several parts of the capital to counter “hostile targets”.
Earlier, a US fleet had boarded a vessel in the Indian Ocean that was transporting oil from Iran and a senior Iranian official said Tehran had banked its first proceeds from the tolls it exacts on shipping through the strait.
Trump had said he “ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be... that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz”.
Israel´s Defence Minister Israel Katz meanwhile said “we are awaiting a green light from the United States—first and foremost to complete the elimination of the Khamenei dynasty... and additionally to return Iran to the Dark Age and the Stone Age”.
Iran has vowed it would keep the strait closed to all but a trickle of approved vessels for as long as the US Navy blockades its ports, brushing off demands from Trump to both reopen Hormuz and surrender its enriched uranium.
The US responded to Iran´s action by imposing its own blockade of Iranian ports, and on Thursday the Pentagon announced that US forces had “carried out a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of the sanctioned stateless vessel M/T Majestic X transporting oil from Iran, in the Indian Ocean”.
Deputy parliament speaker Hamidreza Hajibabaei said Iran received its first revenue from tolls it is imposing on ships seeking to cross Hormuz.
Analysts said Tehran believes its blockade gives it sufficient economic leverage to force Washington to back down on its main demands in peace talks.
Responding to remarks from Trump suggesting that Iranian leadership was “seriously fractured”, the Islamic republic´s president, parliament speaker and chief justice all posted a nearly identical message on social media on Thursday.
”One God, one nation, one leader, and one path; that path being the path to the victory of our dearer-than-life Iran,” they all said.
On Wednesday, Trump told the New York Post that talks could resume in Pakistan within two to three days, though no delegations were presently headed to Islamabad. In the Pakistani capital, blanket security remained in place for the fourth straight day in anticipation of possible talks.
The Pentagon blasted as cherry picking and false a news report saying that the department assessed it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Pentagon shared the six-month estimate during a classified briefing for the members of the House Armed Services Committee, citing three unidentified officials familiar with the discussion.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told a South Korean special envoy that responsibility for the consequences of the war lay with “aggressors,” referring to the United States and Israel, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.
The envoy, Chung Byung-ha, held a meeting with Araqchi in Tehran, the ministry said in a post on X.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Iran´s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei was seriously wounded in the US-Israeli airstrike that killed his father and predecessor Ali Khamenei but is mentally sharp.
Citing several Iranian officials which it did not name, the Times said Mojtaba Khamenei had “at least for now” delegated decision-making to generals in the Revolutionary Guards ideological army.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since succeeding his father and only issued written statements, creating speculation over his condition and if he is still alive.
Although Mojtaba Khamenei was “gravely wounded (in the February 28 airstrike), he is mentally sharp and engaged,” said the NYT.
”One leg was operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic. He had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function. His face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak,” it cited the officials as saying, adding that “eventually, he will need plastic surgery.”
Access for security reasons is extremely limited to Khamenei, who remains in hiding, with only handwritten messages passed on, it said.
Guards commanders do not visit him but President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is also a heart surgeon, has been involved in his care, it said. It said the generals from the Guards who viewed the war with the US and Israel “as a threat to the regime´s survival” that has now been contained. They have also been in charge of military strategy, including the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Stock prices were broadly lower Thursday, retreating after recent gains as investors tempered their enthusiasm for a quick end to the Middle East war.
The benchmark international oil contract, Brent North Sea crude, was back above $100 a barrel, rekindling fears of pervasive inflation that could dent economic growth around the globe.
Wall Street´s main indexes were little changed after reaching record highs this month, while most markets in Europe and Asia ended lower.
British defence minister John Healey and his French counterpart Catherine Vautrin said they were confident that real progress could be made on the key Strait of Hormuz, as the two countries hosted a meeting with military planners on the issue.
“Turning diplomatic momentum into action demands sharp planning, frank discussion and firm commitments from allied and partner nations,” they said in a joint statement released by Britain’s Ministry of Defence. “We are grateful to those nations who have already indicated their willingness to contribute. We are confident that real progress can be made,” the statement, described as a message to those attending the meeting, added.
The German government urged Iran to seize the opportunity to continue peace talks with the United States, adding that the Strait of Hormuz should be kept open permanently.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran´s ousted shah, argued that any negotiations with the clerical leadership in Tehran amount to “appeasement” and voiced hope that renewed street protests will topple it. Pahlavi, 65, was speaking on a visit to Berlin, where he was greeted by some supporters but also bitter opponents—with one activist splashing a red liquid on him before being detained by police.
Iran on Thursday hanged a man convicted of membership in a banned opposition group, the judiciary said, with an NGO describing him as the latest “political prisoner” to be executed in an unprecedented trend.
Sultan Ali Shirzadi Fakhr was hanged on charges of membership of the People´s Mujahedin (MEK) and “collaboration with the Israeli regime´s spy service” Mossad, the judiciary´s Mizan Online website reported.
Iran flaunted its tightened grip over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday with video of its commandos. Iranian state television broadcast footage overnight of masked troops pulling up in a grey speedboat alongside the MSC Francesca, climbing a rope ladder to a shell door in the hull and jumping through brandishing rifles.
Iran has banked the first proceeds from the tolls it is exacting on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior official said Thursday.
Ship crossings through the Strait of Hormuz have fallen sharply since Sunday due to the blockades imposed by Iran and the United States, while security incidents involving vessels have multiplied, according to data compiled by AFP.
After a peak in crossings by 26 raw materials carriers on April 18, the number of transits has dropped to its lowest level since the war began, according to maritime data from Kpler. From April 19 to 22, only 18 vessels passed through the strait, an average of 4.5 per day. By comparison, between March 1 and April 17, around nine ships—double that figure—crossed daily. About 120 daily transits are recorded during peacetime, according to maritime information site Lloyd´s List. Traffic is therefore currently down by more than 96 percent from normal levels.
Pope Leo firmly condemned the killing of protesters in Iran, after US President Donald Trump criticized the Catholic leader last week for not doing so while speaking out against the US-Israel war with Iran.
Leo, the first US pope, also decried the deaths of “so many” civilians in the war and lamented the collapse of US-Iran peace talks in comments aboard his return flight to Rome after a four-nation Africa tour.
Italian UN peacekeepers have replaced the statue of Jesus Christ vandalised by Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Thursday. Meloni in a statement thanked the Italian contingent of the UN´s UNIFIL peacekeeping force “for deciding to donate a new crucifix to the Lebanese village of Debl”.
An American-Kuwaiti journalist held for weeks in Kuwait during a crackdown on sharing footage of the US-Iran war has been cleared of all charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who has contributed to The New York Times, PBS, and Al Jazeera English, was arrested on March 3 for allegedly spreading false information, harming national security and misusing his mobile phone.
Sweden´s government said that the country might need to ration fuel in the coming months as the Middle East war has a “significant impact” on the country´s economy.
The Iran war has exposed Africa´s vulnerability to fuel chokepoints and is heading for an 86 million tonne fuel shortfall by 2040, the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) said Thursday.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “increasingly concerned” about a growing use of proxies by foreign states to carry out attacks in Britain, pledging to bring forward new legislation following recent attacks.
US President Donald Trump was to meet Lebanese and Israeli envoys at a new round of peace talks Thursday, with Beirut seeking a one-month extension of a shaky ceasefire set to expire.
With Trump struggling to push Iran into a deal on the wider regional war, the United States is hoping for progress on Lebanon, which Israel has pounded in response to Hezbollah fire.
The talks, previously planned at the State Department like the first round last week and to be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, were shifted to the White House.
