Trump Says He Agreed to Continue Talks With Iran

[Financial News]  


U.S. President Donald Trump said on the 10th local time that he had agreed to continue peace talks with Iran. He also stressed that the ceasefire between the two countries was "over!"
In a post on his Truth Social account that day, President Trump said, "Iran asked us to continue 'talking,' and we agreed to do so." He added, "But the United States made it very clear to them," and said, "The ceasefire is over!"
According to the Financial Times, the United States carried out airstrikes on Iran for two straight days, on the 7th and 8th, but halted them for the time being on the day it said it had agreed to talks. It said the strikes were retaliation for Iran's attacks on merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States and Iran had been continuing negotiations after signing a previous memorandum of understanding last month, but tensions flared again after Iran attacked three merchant vessels, including an oil tanker and an LNG carrier, passing through the Strait of Hormuz near Oman.
As the talks stalled and Trump grew frustrated, he began considering ending the ceasefire for the first time at the NATO summit in Turkey on the 8th, after the attacks on merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
He has said, "I don't like them," and added that he was not even sure whether Iran wanted a deal. He also described Iran's leadership as "human garbage" and "sick people."
Over the two days of the 7th and 8th, the U.S. military struck more than 160 targets in Iran. The attacks targeted rebuilt radar systems, underground missile stockpiles, and fast boats belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The military also struck Kharg Island, the oil hub that handles about 90% of Iran's oil exports.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced sanctions on a financier for Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, shortly after the president formally declared an end to the ceasefire with Iran.
The United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it imposed sanctions on Ali Ansari, an Iranian national living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), for using a vast global asset network to provide benefits to Mojtaba and other regime elites.
It also sanctioned three Iranian exchange houses and people involved in running them.

dympna@fnnews.com Song Kyung-jae Reporter