U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday prolonged his deadline for Iran to reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, saying the U.S. would hold off on strikes against Iranian power plants for five days.
Shortly after Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social site, Iranian state television put up a graphic that read: “U.S. president backs down following Iran’s firm warning.” The reprieve got here hours ahead of Trump’s self-imposed deadline later within the day.
Writing in all capital letters, Trump said the U.S. and Iran have had “excellent and productive conversations” that might yield “an entire and total resolution” within the war. Talks would proceed “throughout the week,” he said.
Trump added that the suspension of his threat to attack power plants was “subject to the success of the continued meetings and discussions.”
Trump didn’t elaborate on the negotiations that had taken place. Iran didn’t immediately acknowledge any talks between the countries, but Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi did say he spoke by phone together with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan. Turkey has been an intermediary before in negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
Trump’s announcement got here because the United Arab Emirates reported its air defense were attempting to intercept latest incoming Iranian fire Monday afternoon.
Earlier Monday, Iran warned it might strike electricity plants across the Middle East and mine the Persian Gulf after Trump threatened to bomb power stations within the Islamic Republic if it didn’t reopen the strait.
The war, now in its fourth week, has already seen several dramatic turning points — the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, the bombing of a key Iranian gas field, and strikes targeting oil and gas facilities and other civilian infrastructure in Gulf Arab nations. The conflict has killed greater than 2,000 people, shaken the worldwide economy, sent oil prices surging, and endangered a number of the world’s busiest air corridors.
Trump’s ultimatum and Iran’s promise of retaliation threatened to lift the stakes yet again, with potentially catastrophic repercussions for civilians across the region.
If carried out, the attacks could cut electricity to wide swaths of individuals in Iran and across the Gulf and knock out desalination plants that provide many desert nations with drinking water. There are also increasing concerns about the implications any of strikes on nuclear facilities.
The fever pitch of the rhetoric shows how the war has spiraled to some extent unimaginable at first of the conflict on Feb. 28, when america and Israel began bombing Iran.
Trump said the U.S. would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless the country releases its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz inside 48 hours — a deadline that might expire late Monday Washington time but has now been prolonged.
Iran has shut the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped together with other essential commodities, in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes. A trickle of ships has gotten through, and Iran insists the crucial waterway stays open — just to not the U.S., Israel or their allies.
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The chokehold has wreaked havoc on energy markets, pushed up the costs on food and other goods well beyond the Middle East and sent shock waves throughout the worldwide economy.
“No country will likely be resistant to the consequences of this crisis if it continues to go on this direction,” said Fatih Birol, the top of the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard promised retaliation if Trump made good on his threat, saying Iran it might hit power plants in all areas that provide electricity to American bases, “in addition to the economic, industrial and energy infrastructures through which Americans have shares.”
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Iran would consider vital infrastructure across the region to be legitimate targets, including energy and desalination facilities critical for drinking water in Gulf nations.
Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency, which is near the Revolutionary Guard, published an inventory of such facilities, including the United Arab Emirates’ nuclear power plant. Over the weekend, Iran launched missiles targeting Dimona in Israel, near a facility key to its long-suspected atomic weapons program. The Israeli facility wasn’t damaged.
United States Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper, meanwhile, claimed in an interview that Iran was launching missiles and drones from populated areas, and suggested those areas can be targeted.
“It’s essential stay inside for right away,” Cooper told Iranian civilians within the interview with the Farsi-language satellite network Iran International that aired early Monday.
In his first one-on-one interview for the reason that war began, Cooper said the U.S. and Israel were targeting infrastructure and manufacturing facilities to destroy Iran’s capabilities to rebuild its military.
“It’s not only in regards to the threat today,” he said. “We’re eliminating the specter of the long run.”
Israel launched latest attacks Monday on the Iranian capital, saying it had “begun a wide-scale wave of strikes” on infrastructure targets in Tehran without immediately elaborating. Explosions were heard in multiple locations within the afternoon. It wasn’t immediately clear what had been hit.
With the U.S. deploying more amphibious assault ships and extra Marines to the Middle East, Iran warned against any ground attack.
“Any attempt by the enemy to focus on Iran’s coasts or islands will, naturally and in accordance with established military practice, result in the mining of all access routes … within the Persian Gulf and along the coasts,” Iran’s Defense Council warned said in a press release.
The widespread use of mines could imperil not only military vessels but scores of economic ships waiting to go through the Strait of Hormuz, and a cleanup would last long after the conflict ends.
Trump has said he has no plans to send ground forces into Iran but in addition has said that he retains all options. Israel has suggested its ground forces could participate within the war.
Israel has also targeted the Iran-linked Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon through the war, while the group has fired a whole bunch of rockets into Israel.
In recent days, Israel has hit many apartment buildings in Beirut and bombed bridges over the Litani river within the Lebanon’s south.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called the targeting of bridges “a prelude to a ground invasion,” while Egypt denounced the strikes because the “collective punishment” of civilians for the actions of Hezbollah.
Authorities say Israeli strikes have killed greater than 1,000 people in Lebanon and displaced greater than 1 million.
Iran’s death toll has surpassed 1,500, its Health Ministry has said. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian strikes. Not less than 13 U.S. military members have been killed, together with greater than a dozen civilians within the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states.
Oil prices remained stubbornly high in early trading, with the value of Brent crude, the international standard, at around US$113 a barrel, up some 55 per cent for the reason that war began.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, a senior United Nations official, said the world has already seen a ripple effect, including “exponential price hikes in oil, fuel and gas” which have had a far-reaching impact on hundreds of thousands, primarily in Asian and African developing countries.
“There is no such thing as a military solution,” he said.
In one other sign of the far-reaching effects, South Korean chemical giant LG Chem said Monday it needed to shut down a significant industrial plant since the war had disrupted supplies of naphtha, a petroleum product utilized in plastic manufacturing.