VIDEO “Iran can't blackmail us” and the situation is “going very well”. Trump's first comments after Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz again
“We have very good conversations going on,” the US president said on Saturday about the Iran crisis at a White House press conference where he signed an executive order to ease restrictions on the use of psychedelic drugs.
Trump says there are “very good” talks between Washington and Tehran at the moment, despite Iran's decision to close the Strait of Hormuz again.
“We have very good conversations going on. It's actually going very well. They have no navy, they have no air force, they have no leaders, they have nothing. It's actually regime change,” said Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Surrounded by 14 people, he urged reporters to focus on the signed document rather than the war in Iran.
The US leader said the regime in Tehran had killed “a lot of people” over the years, including through Iran-aligned militias.
“We have a pretty different view of the situation than other presidents. They got away with murder for 47 years, they're not getting away with it anymore,” Trump added.
The American president also recalled the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds forces of the Revolutionary Guards, in 2020 in Iraq in an airstrike ordered during the Republican's first term in the White House.
Strait of Hormuz, closed again
Iran announced on Saturday that the Strait of Hormuz is once again “under the strict control” of its armed forces and will remain so until the United States ends its blockade of Iranian ports.
Shortly after the Iranian military's announcement, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since the start of the war, issued new threats in a message published in English on his Telegram channel.
A maritime monitor run by the British navy said on Saturday it had received information that Iran's Revolutionary Guards had fired on an oil tanker in the strait, according to The New York Times.
The new developments in the strait, a crucial route for global crude oil supplies and beyond, come just a day after Iran's foreign minister announced it was “fully open”. The announcement had led Donald Trump to claim major progress in negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
The President of the United States has said that Iranian ports will be targeted by the US naval blockade until an agreement is reached to end the war.
Hopes for an end to the war had been fueled by the 10-day ceasefire that had been in Lebanon, a condition of Tehran for a broader deal with the United States. The NYT noted that Trump and US officials have made efforts to do so, even as they have denied trying to meet Iranian demands.
