WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed threats to attack Iran, saying “time is running out” to make a deal on nuclear weapons, after Tehran rejected talks.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out,” the US leader said in a social media post, noting that “a massive armada is heading to Iran.”
“As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse!“
The dialing up of threats came after Iran’s top diplomat said the country would not come to the table under the shadow of military action.
“Conducting diplomacy through military threat cannot be effective or useful,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in televised comments on Wednesday. “If they want negotiations to take shape, they must certainly set aside threats, excessive demands and raising illogical issues.”
Trump has repeatedly left open the option of new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war in June aimed at degrading Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Earlier this month, he threatened to strike Iran over its deadly crackdown on anti-government protests. But the prospect of immediate American action seemed to recede in recent days, with both sides insisting on giving diplomacy a chance.
With a US naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier lurking in the region, top Iranian officials also reached out to key Arab states in behind-the-scenes diplomacy to rally support.
A strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln has now arrived in Middle Eastern waters, US Central Command said, without revealing its precise location.
Trump threatens Iran over nuclear talks, says ‘time is running out’
https://arab.news/b4a54
Trump threatens Iran over nuclear talks, says ‘time is running out’
- US president says he hopes Tehran will negotiate a deal with Washington
- Trump warns 'massive armada' is heading to Iran
A man detonates explosive belt during arrest attempt in Iraq, injuring 2 security members
- The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria
- No members of the security forces were killed
BAGHDAD: A man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up Friday while a security force was trying to arrest him in western Iraq near the Syrian border, killing himself and wounding two security members, an Iraqi security official said.
The raid was being conducted in the Al-Khaseem area in Qaim district that borders Syria, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The official added that “preliminary information” confirms that no members of the security forces were killed, while two personnel were injured and transferred for medical treatment.
Iraq’s National Security Agency said in a statement that its members besieged a hideout of a Daesh group security official and two of his bodyguards. One bodyguard ignited his explosives belt, killing him. It gave no further details.
Daesh once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate in 2014. The extremist group was defeated on the battlefield in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019 but its sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries.
In December, two US service members and an American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blamed on Daesh. The US carried out strikes on Syria days later in retaliation.
US and Iraqi authorities in January began transferring hundreds of the nearly 9,000 Daesh members held in jails run by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria to Iraq, where Iraqi authorities plan to prosecute them.
