LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago

US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has called off the “very hard” strikes on Iran he promised earlier today, and claimed a deal to end the war is all but complete. 

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 United States, 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”.

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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