The United States is ready to resume war on Iran “if necessary”. The warning from the head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, comes in days marked by the most intense clashes since the fragile ceasefire declared on April 8, while it still appears far from the closure of an agreement that the American president, Donald Trump, had almost taken for granted. Last Thursday, Washington sources had hinted at a framework agreement that would have extended the current truce by 60 days.
“Iran must accept that it will never have an atomic weapon,” Trump reiterated yesterday on his Truth social network, once again calling for the destruction of the Islamic Republic’s stockpiles of enriched uranium.
Iran, for its part, insists on wanting to address the nuclear issue at a later date, after the signing of the memorandum of understanding currently under discussion, which concerns the end of hostilities started by the US and Israel on February 28 and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The crucial waterway, through which more than 20% of global hydrocarbon supplies pass, has been effectively sealed since the start of the war and is accompanied by the naval blockade imposed on Iranian ports by US forces, who today struck a Gambian ship attempting to violate it.
“President Trump will only sign an agreement if it is advantageous for America and if his red lines are respected,” a White House source confided to AFP. The spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghai, rejected American requests for the immediate reopening of the Strait and limited himself to reporting that “discussions are ongoing”. Only Iran and Oman are “authorized to decide” on its management of the passage, Iranian parliamentarian Alireza Salimi told the ISNA news agency.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also invites the nuclear issue to be postponed to a subsequent negotiation, according to which an agreement is “closer than ever”. Given the “immense international impact” of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the resolution of this problem is “a higher priority than nuclear issues”, added Fidan, interviewed by the Japanese newspaper Nikkei.