LAST UPDATE | 12 Jun

IRAN HAS SAID it has not reached a final decision on a deal to end the Middle East war, despite Donald Trump claiming an agreement could be signed in days and cancelling threatened strikes.

The US president’s statements fuelled a stock market rally and tanked oil prices, again spurring hopes a resolution was nearing in the war triggered by US-Israeli strikes in February.

In a post on his social media platform, Trump said he cancelled the bombing campaign because “discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved”.

“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved,” he said.

Those parties, he said, include the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, “and others”.

Trump said the US naval blockade of Iranian ports “will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalised”, adding that the time and place of the signing of an agreement would be announced “shortly”.

However, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Tehran “had not reached a final conclusion on the agreement”.

He added that “most of the text of the agreement was finalised, but the problem began when the US side made new demands and changed its positions.”

The Tasnim news agency noted that Trump had announced a deal was imminent 38 times in the previous two months.

“Until Iran announces the matter of a potential understanding, any news from Trump on this subject should be regarded the same as his previous messaging,” it noted.

Later Trump doubled down, telling reporters “I understand the answer is yes,” when asked if Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had approved the deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli leader spoke to Trump, who vowed any memorandum of understanding would include the removal of Tehran’s enriched nuclear material as well as dismantling of missile infrastructure.

Threat of more strikes

Trump had threatened “bigger, more powerful” attacks on what would have been a third successive night, which followed the downing of a US military helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz. 

“The United States will be hitting Iran… VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.

Iran’s foreign ministry had said earlier that the “illegal and criminal” US attacks in recent days amounted to a flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement between the two countries that have rendered the truce “practically meaningless”.

Iran’s chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf also responded by warning the US to carefully consider its next step in the war or face years of turmoil and soaring oil and gas prices.

“Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets and create an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years,” Ghalibaf, who is also Iran’s parliamentary speaker, said in a social media post.

Iran’s top military commander also warned that any renewed US attacks would trigger a tougher response and plunge the wider region into a new round of instability.

General Ali Abdollahi, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, warned in a statement that “if the United States once again seeks to carry out attacks against heroic Iran, it will receive a harsher response than before, and the flames of war, in addition to creating insecurity in the region, will become more widespread and far-reaching”.

With reporting from AFP

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