Trump: “We’re only half negotiating with them”

News blog about the war in the Middle East

Trump: “We’re only half negotiating”

The Iranian regime wants to publish photos of the supreme leader. Israel opposes Trump’s plan for Gaza. All developments in the news blog.

Donald Trump Apparently wants to forego further attacks on Iran for the time being and instead rely on economic pressure. “We’re holding back,” Trump told the Axios news portal in a short telephone interview on Sunday. “We are only half negotiating with them,” the US president added. The US government is waiting and watching Iran, which has “enormous inflation” and “no money.”

Just over a week ago, Trump launched new, massive attacks on the Iran threatened, but then suspended again because there were “outlines of an agreement” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz give. Recently, however, Iran again set tough conditions for opening the strait, which is important for global oil and gas trade. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reiterated on Sunday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain blocked “until the enemy meets all our conditions.”

After Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday received, among other things, “compensation” from the USA had demanded, Iran’s National Security Council presented a whole list of conditions for an end to the blockade: among other things, it called for an end to the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in the Lebanonin Palestine, in Yemen and in Iraq” as well as a lifting of the US blockade of Iranian ports and sanctions.

Iranian President Massoud Peseschkian met with Iran’s new supreme leader, Modshtaba Khamenei. Khamenei’s office said on Sunday that the two spoke “in detail about the country’s problems and challenges,” including the “current military situation and future prospects.” It was not announced exactly when the meeting took place. On Wednesday, Peseschkian described communication with Khamenei as “very difficult at the moment.”

Peseschkian last announced at the beginning of May that he had met with Khamenei. He didn’t give a date back then either. Khamenei’s office had not issued any statement at the time.

Khamenei is the successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had headed the Islamic Republic since 1989 and was killed on February 28 on the first day of the US-Israeli war against Iran. His son, Moschtaba Khamenei, who succeeded him, has never appeared in public since then. On Sunday, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general announced the release of photos purporting to show Khamenei in public and at meetings. As he told the Tasnim news agency, this is planned “in the future”, but he did not give a more specific date.