The USA has cancelled a planned attack on Iran after Tehran agreed in principle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and negotiate an end to its nuclear programme, Donald Trump has said.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump said the US military was “locked and loaded” and prepared to launch an attack against the Islamic Republic with force “not seen since World War II.”
However, the US president said, Iran and other regional countries had asked Washington to hold off because “the perimeters of a deal” had been agreed. He said the proposed terms would include the “immediate, complete, and total” reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and “an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.”
Trump continued: “Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the world and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a deal.”
Israel “joins me in this commitment,” Trump said in the post, adding, “Get to work, everybody, and get it done.”
The American military and the Israel Defence Forces had been planning to restart joint attacks on Iran, targeting critical energy infrastructure sites, possibly beginning this weekend, according to media reports citing unnamed US officials.
Asked on Friday about talks to end the conflict with the Islamic Republic, Trump had said that Iranian negotiators were making him “angry”.
“I’m losing faith in them because they do lie and do, they do misrepresent,” he said.
Moshe Passal, a legislator for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party, told news service JNS on today that as long as the Islamic regime remains in power in Iran, it will continue to pose a significant threat to the world.
“As long as confronting the problem is postponed, the price we pay will only grow. When the world faced Hitler, there were those who said, ‘Let’s reach an agreement,’” Passal said.
“In the end, there was no choice – the world had to defeat him, and that came at a cost. People in Britain, the United States, Europe and around the world paid the price. I don’t believe any agreement can be reached with this regime.”
Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said that Iran is now willing to reach an agreement over denuclearisation since it no longer has its “conventional shield” of drones and missiles to hide behind.
Speaking on Saturday night on Fox News with Lara Trump – the president’s daughter-in-law – Rubio said: “I don’t think the Iranian regime has ever faced a president like President Trump, which is someone that actually takes action.”
Tehran still has drones and missiles, which can inflict damage, but degrading its military capabilities has allowed the US to approach the Iranian regime “from a position of strength, not from a position of weakness,” the secretary of state said.
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