President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the United States was ready to strike Iran again but might not need to, telling the Financial Times that Washington appeared to be getting everything it wanted in talks with Tehran.
“We’re locked and loaded if we need to go,” Trump told the newspaper in a six-minute telephone interview hours before polls closed in the US midterm elections, adding that there might be no reason for military action. He described the US position in the talks as brilliant.
He was responding to a question about signals from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that new strikes could be imminent.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump confirmed in an interview with Fox News that the United States had carried out strikes overnight on Iran’s Qeshm island, in the Strait of Hormuz. He said Iran had built an anti-aircraft facility there and called the operation a minor attack. “We hit it last night very nicely,” he said.
An Israeli military spokesperson told AFP that Israel was not involved.
Iran’s response
Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said the Islamic Republic was “ready for battle with its finger on the trigger” and that it was now up to Washington to prevent war. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Tehran retained the right to legitimate self-defence after the strikes.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said his government was still trying to resolve the crisis through dialogue, warning that “no one will benefit from this war” if fighting resumed. He said the supreme leader had recently given the government new powers to negotiate on issues that had previously been off-limits.
A senior Iranian official said Tehran was ready to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key energy route, within two days, but only if Washington accepted its long-standing demands. In September, Iran proposed a seven-day plan to reopen the waterway, conditional on ending the war on all fronts, unfreezing Iranian assets, lifting oil sanctions and ending the counter-blockade of Iranian ports.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the possibility of carrying out the plan in two days showed Iran was acting in good faith.
Talks
Qatar, which is mediating indirect negotiations between the two countries, said it remained hopeful of an interim deal. Both sides were reviewing the ideas and proposals Doha had put forward, foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told reporters. “We remain hopeful that there is still a chance for a deal to take place,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi confirmed on Monday that indirect negotiations were under way. US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that he and Trump were optimistic about reaching an agreement. “We’ve certainly made some progress,” he told reporters.
The Qeshm strikes came hours after Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Iran wanted a settlement as soon as possible, and said a deal could happen.
In the run-up to the vote, Trump kept up his threats against Tehran. On Sunday he said the United States might have to give Iran “the hammer” at some point, after saying he still had one or two targets to deal with, including Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran, a suspected nuclear site. Tehran denies it is a nuclear facility.
Iranian officials have repeatedly warned of wide-ranging retaliation if Washington resumes the war, which began in February when the United States and Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iran. The conflict has been at a stalemate for months.
Ossoff warning
Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, who won re-election in Georgia on Tuesday by defeating Republican Congressman Mike Collins, used his victory speech to warn that American credibility and leadership abroad were in decline and that “the world is rearming for global conflict”, Fox News reported.
Humanity was fast forgetting the lessons of two world wars and the Holocaust, he told supporters, according to Fox News. He also said he feared for the world his daughters would inherit, one with enough nuclear weapons to destroy it a thousand times over.
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