Trump threatens Iran energy sites if no deal reached on war

[WASHINGTON] President Donald Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure if no deal is reached to end the war there, while also hailing talks as productive. 

“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinisation plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched,’” Trump posted on Monday (Mar 30) on his social media platform. 

The message is Trump’s latest threat against Iran to allow shipping through the key strait, a month into the US and Israel’s bombing campaign. The effective closure of the waterway has squeezed global energy markets and raised the price of oil.

Trump’s comments come a day after he told reporters that Teheran agreed to “most of” the 15-point proposal of ceasefire terms put forth by the US via intermediaries in Pakistan. Iran had responded with five conditions of its own, including maintaining control over the Strait of Hormuz.

But the president also suggested he wanted to seize control of Iran’s oil in an interview with the Financial Times, a risky military operation that would entail a ground invasion and occupation of Teheran’s main oil export hub, Kharg Island.

Trump conceded that such a military operation would “mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while.”

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Officials from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey met over the weekend but it remains unclear whether they made any progress toward a ceasefire.

Though the president continues to strike an optimistic tone about negotiations, he has ordered thousands of US troops to the Middle East in recent days, including an amphibious assault team and members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. BLOOMBERG