Donald Trump has extended for another six days the duration of his ultimatum to Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz because otherwise he will order its energy infrastructure to be bombed, assuring that talks with Tehran – which suffered fresh bombing by Israel’s air force early this morning – are “going very well”.
His government’s diplomacy chief Marco Rubio arrived in France today, an AFP reporter noted, for the second day of the G7, during which he is expected to put pressure on his counterparts to help open the Strait of Hormuz amid the war.
To ensure unimpeded passage through this key sea route for the global hydrocarbon trade, the Republican president has threatened to destroy power plants in Iran “starting with the largest”.
But “at the request of the Iranian government,” according to him, he extended the length of his telegram “to Monday, April 6th by 8 p.m.”Washington time; 3:00 a.m. Tuesday, April 7th, GMT) before ordering the destruction of power plants in Iran, he announced yesterday.
The new postponement somewhat stabilized oil prices, which fell slightly today. The price of a barrel of North Sea Brent, a benchmark variety in international markets, fell to around $107 — still more than 40% more expensive than on the eve of the war.
To US President Trump’s great satisfaction, Iran is allowing, according to him, “ten ships” a day to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
For days now, the US president seems to be swinging on a pendulum, on the one hand threatening to hit the Islamic Republic “harder than ever”, on the other assuring that the armed conflict will end very soon.
“The talks (with Iran) are continuing and, despite what the fake news media says (…) are going very well,” Donald Trump claimed via Truth Social, still insisting that Tehran wants more than him to negotiate to end the war.
Tehran, on the other hand, continues to refuse to use the term “talks”. According to an unnamed source at Tasnim news agency, Iran has forwarded “officially” and “through intermediaries” a response to the 15-point plan proposed by the US.
In anticipation, the Revolutionary Guards announced in the early morning hours that they had attacked military and energy targets in Israel and Gulf states with missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, according to Iran’s FARS news agency.
“In the heart of Tehran”
Tomorrow Saturday the war will mark its first month; it erupted with the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28th before spreading across the Middle East, heightening the atmosphere of concern about the consequences for the global economy and for oil and gas supplies.
While Washington seems to be looking for a diplomatic door out of the war, Israel has not stopped asserting its determination to intensify its operations – today it bombed again, almost simultaneously, the capitals of Iran and Lebanon.
The Israeli army said in the early hours of this morning that it had launched “a wave of large-scale strikes targeting Iranian terrorist regime infrastructure in the heart of Tehran”, while shortly before that powerful explosions were heard in the southern part of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, an area Israel considers a stronghold of the Iranian-affiliated Shiite movement Hezbollah.
Lebanon was dragged into war on 2March with a Hezbollah attack in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and is paying a very heavy price, with over 1.100 dead and more than a million uprooted, according to official figures.
According to official figures.
Israel to date has been silent on talks reportedly being held between the US and Iran, via Pakistan, to end the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to have his army wage simultaneous wars in Iran and Lebanon has no longer secured opposition consensus, with opposition leader Yair Lapid criticizing operations “without strategy, without the necessary means and with too few soldiers.”
Israeli army spokesman Effie Defrin acknowledged last night that the units need “additional forces.”
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