Trump and Iran’s supreme leader threaten trade as mediators try to save their crumbling deal – National
The leaders of the United States and Iran traded threats on Saturday as a temporary ceasefire agreement collapsed amid tensions in the Middle East and efforts to resume talks.
President Donald Trump overnight made threats on social media about further attacks on Iran, after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for the US leader’s assassination. Senior US officials have demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and ships will not be attacked.
Later, Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed that the Iranian people would continue to avenge his father’s death. Such revenge “is the will of our nation and must be carried out for sure,” he said in remarks on state television. He has still not been seen in public since the war began on February 28 with the strikes that killed his father.
Tehran has insisted that the strait remains under its control and that it is allowed to charge ships passing through it, a position it took after the start of the war.
The exchange of threats followed days of US airstrikes against Iran, triggered by Iran’s attack on three ships in the port, and Iranian retaliatory fire against Arab countries in the region.
Trump announced that it was over but said the US would continue negotiations. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday traveled to Oman, across the strait, for further talks, a day after Qatari mediators met with officials in Tehran.
Trump says he responded to death threats
“A thousand missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to follow soon, if the Iranian Government follows through on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.
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He said he was responding to threats “to kill him, or to try to kill him”. During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners carried placards or placards calling for Trump to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran buried Khamenei, 86, this week.
Trump added that the US military will “totally eliminate and destroy all areas of Iran – PRAISE ALLAH!”
Trump has repeatedly invoked God’s name in Arabic, and threatened to destroy Iran’s civilization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a human rights organization, condemned Trump’s “outrageous mockery of Islam.”
Iran accuses Washington of violating the interim agreement
Iran’s foreign minister has accused the US of violating the interim agreement by ending a waiver allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in US dollars. Washington destroyed them in response to attacks on ships in the strait.
“Real testing: There can only be compliance,” Araghchi wrote in X.
He was scheduled to meet his colleagues in Oman. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his country’s broadcaster, TRT, that he believes “a solution can be reached” this weekend between Iran and Oman.
The US is urging sailors to pass through the southern route, in Omani waters. Iran said the crisis should be under its sole control and the ships should start paying fees to Tehran. The world has for decades considered it as an international waterway.
About a fifth of all commercial oil and natural gas went through it before the war began. Iran’s handling of the crisis during the war led to a global energy crisis, even though oil prices have fallen sharply since the war peaked at $120 a barrel.
Tehran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Friday said any activity in the crisis, including opening or dismantling bombs, “lies only with Iran.”
US officials accuse the ministers of trying to sabotage the deal
US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the situation with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a radical group of Iranian insurgents tried to undermine the ceasefire.
However, Iran has insisted that its democracy is united under a new supreme leader.
After the US wrapped up its latest strikes on Thursday, it reportedly retaliated against Iran, raising questions about who else might be targeting the Islamic Republic.
Israel did not mention them, which means that the Gulf Arab countries may have launched them, perhaps as a way to prevent Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated against the US strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.
Iran’s two-day strikes have killed at least 17 people and injured 115, said Hossein Kermanpour, spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Health.
The US says the nuclear deal will require Iran to turn over enriched uranium
US officials have told reporters that the US will never reach a nuclear deal with Iran if it does not begin to halt its attacks on shipping.
They also said any deal on Iran’s nuclear program would require Tehran to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. That is something Iran has repeatedly rejected.
If the US doesn’t reach a deal with Iran to turn over the asset, it has military options to ensure it remains buried underground forever, officials said. They did not have details about them.
Uranium, enriched to weapons-grade levels, is believed to be at the nuclear sites the US detonated in 2025. Iran has long insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful, although the International Atomic Energy Agency has said the Islamic Republic is the only country in the world that has enriched uranium without a weapons program.
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