Trump Calls Off Iran Attack After Threat, Cites Ceasefire Talks

Hours after threatening to hit Iran “very hard tonight”, United States President Donald Trump has called off his planned attack, signalling instead that a possible breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations had been reached.

The Thursday post on Truth Social came roughly five hours after he warned the US military would be “taking Kharg Island” and other Iranian “oil infrastructure points in the not too distant future”.

“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump wrote.

“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others.”

He added that the ongoing US naval blockade of Iranian ports “will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly”.

Iran did not immediately respond to the statement, which capped two days of strikes that threatened to derail ongoing negotiations for a lasting ceasefire.

About-face on threats

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said the US would soon launch another wave of strikes.

“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets,” Trump wrote, before referencing the US military action against Venezuela.

That included the abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s replacement, Delcy Rodriguez, has overseen an opening of the country’s state-controlled oil industry to foreign investors, under heavy US pressure.

Kharg Island, known as the “Forbidden Island” due to its strict military control, processes 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports.

In a subsequent interview with Fox News, Trump said taking Kharg Island has always been his “preference”.

“I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest,” he added, saying he was still averse to deploying boots on the ground in Iran.

Trump’s statements came shortly after Iran’s foreign ministry said the latest round of US strikes rendered the ongoing pause in fighting “practically meaningless”.

On Thursday, Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote in a post on X that “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”.

Iran’s ⁠top ⁠joint military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said that Iran would respond more severely than before if the US launched more attacks, according to Iranian state media.

Recent US strikes have targeted the port city of Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, and the southern towns of Sirik, Minab and Karaj west of Tehran.

Iran, meanwhile, has attacked US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Trump has also accused Iran of downing a US helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.

Following the latest round of US strikes, Iran announced the full closure of the strait, the arterial waterway that has emerged as Tehran’s key point of leverage in the conflict.

Elusive deal

US officials have for weeks been signalling that a deal is close, but have offered few specifics on impasses over the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, future control of the Strait of Hormuz, or the release of frozen Iranian funds.

Analysts have said the Trump administration is constrained by the political imperative of reaching a deal with better terms than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which saw Tehran curtail its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and has, since taking office last year, twice struck Iran amid ongoing talks on its nuclear programme.

On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed that any damage Iran “inflicts on our allies in the Gulf will be paid for with funds extracted” from Iran’s frozen assets, which are estimated to total about $100bn globally.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said Trump appears to be using military pressure and inflammatory language to try to push Iran towards a deal.

“So what’s clear is that the US president is continuing with this Truth Social post to mix public threats with what he believes is still possible, and that is diplomacy at the barrel of a gun,” Halkett said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies, said the Trump administration “wants to escalate in order to create leverage at the negotiating table to pressure Tehran to make concessions that they did not in the past”.

Tehran, meanwhile, is concerned with “restoring deterrence against additional attacks on the country”.

“And for Iran, this is also important because the previous response to the US attack was not enough to ensure that they will not attack Iran again,” Aslani said. “That is why they might be escalating to de-escalate [the situation].”

On Thursday, US CENTCOM also announced that the military had disabled three oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman amid its ongoing blockade of Iranian ports.

India has called on the US to cease attacks on Thursday, saying three Indian crew members were killed in one US strike on a vessel.