Trump suspends Iran bombing for two weeks, after apocalyptic threats / Photo: - - AFP
Trump suspends Iran bombing for two weeks, after apocalyptic threats
US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was suspending bombing of Iran for two weeks but that Tehran must reopen the key Strait of Hormuz, barely an hour before his apocalyptic deadline to destroy the country was set to expire.
After more than five weeks of blistering attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel, Trump said he had accepted a proposal mediated by Pakistan to extend his deadline but he again pushed on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway vital for the world's oil.
Trump said he had spoke to Pakistan's leaders who "requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran."
"And subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
"The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East," Trump wrote.
He said that Iran had sent a 10-point plan to the United States that he called "workable" for negotiations.
The price of oil quickly fell sharply on Trump's remarks. Oil costs had soared since the war, putting heavy political pressure on Trump.
There was no immediate response from Iran or Israel. Iran had previously said it was ready for any eventuality and defiantly refused to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which it closed in retaliation for the attack launched on February 28.
Trump had set a deadline of 8:00 pm Washington time (midnight GMT), or 3:30 am in Tehran, after an earlier extension in a threat to destroy all power plants and bridges across the country of 90 million people -- a war crime against sites that are primarily of civilian usage.
Trump earlier Tuesday made threats shocking even by his own provocative standards that brought warnings that he was encouraging genocide -- potentially one day leading to war crimes charges against US servicemembers who comply.
"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will," Trump had written.
The rhetoric was an escalation from a profanity-laden post two days earlier, on Easter Sunday.
Pope Leo XIV said that "this threat against all the people of Iran" was "truly unacceptable."
- Pakistani mediation -
Pakistan, which is playing a key mediating role in the Middle East conflict, said it had proposed the two-week extension of Trump's deadline and that Iran should also reopen the Strait of Hormuz for the same period as a "goodwill gesture."
"Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future," Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.
The United States and Israel struck key infrastructure even before Trump's deadline, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirming attacks on railways and bridges he said were "used by the Revolutionary Guards."
The Israeli military also offered a rare statement of regret after it acknowledged damaging a synagogue in Tehran, saying it had been targeting a senior Iranian commander.
Iran, run by Shia Muslim clerics, is home to around 100 synagogues for its historic Jewish minority.
Infrastructure attacks reported by Iranian authorities Tuesday included a US-Israeli strike on a bridge outside the city of Qom and another on a rail bridge in central Iran that killed two people.
- Death 'not a joke' -
University student Metanat, whose classmate was killed two weeks ago in an attack, told AFP before Trump's suspension of the bombing she felt "terrified and so should everyone else in the country".
The 27-year-old, who declined to give her last name, said as far as Trump's ultimatums were concerned, "some people think they are a joke", but "death is not a joke".
State media published photos purporting to show groups of Iranians forming human chains to protect power plants.
The show of patriotism in the face of attacks came several months after Iran's cleric-run government cracked down violently on mass protests, with rights groups reporting thousands of deaths.
The United States and Israel said that they attacked Iran to degrade its military capacity. Trump has alleged that Iran was near building an atomic bomb, an assertion not backed by the UN nuclear watchdog and most observers.
At the UN Security Council, Russia and China vetoed a resolution on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a text already diluted to remove the green light Gulf states had sought to use force to protect the key shipping lane.
Apart from the infrastructure attacks, strikes were reported on Kharg island, a critical hub for the Iranian oil industry, according to Iran's Mehr news agency, although US media said the attacks were against military targets.
Iran has responded to the war by striking Gulf Arab states that host US troops. Israel in turn has launched a major offensive into Lebanon, vowing to control land from which Iranian-linked Hezbollah has fired rockets.
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