US President Donald Trump sent an optimistic message about the chances of reaching an agreement between the United States and Iran, but threatened to resume bombing if negotiations fail, according to AFP.
If “Iran agrees to deliver what was agreed upon,” the war will end, Donald Trump said Wednesday on social media. If not, the bombings will be resumed “at a much higher level and intensity”, threatened the leader of the United States.
Trump later told reporters in the Oval Office that Washington and Tehran had “very good talks over the last 24 hours.”
“It's very possible we can do a deal,” he added.
Iran has not yet responded to the new American proposals
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told local media that “the US plan and proposal are still under review” and that Tehran would submit its position to Pakistani mediators “after finalizing its views.”
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran's parliament and Tehran's main negotiator in talks with the US, said on Wednesday that Washington “seeks, through a naval blockade, economic pressure and media manipulation, to destroy the country's cohesion so as to force us to surrender”.
On Wednesday, the US military announced that a US warplane had opened fire and damaged an oil tanker trying to breach Washington's blockade of Iranian ports.
It is the second time the US military has fired on a ship it says is trying to defy the blockade that has been in place since April 13.
US forces warned the Iranian-flagged and unladen tanker M/T Hasna that it was violating the blockade, but the crew “did not comply”, so a US F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft “disabled the vessel's rudder by firing multiple projectiles with its 20 mm cannon,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a post on X.
