WASHINGTON, Aug 17 — United States President Donald Trump said today that Iran should surrender to end a war with the US as talks between the countries remained stalled.
“They should put up the white flag of surrender,” Trump told a Fox News reporter during a phone interview.
An interim deal agreed to in June declared an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts”, but quickly unravelled, with Trump saying it was “over” on July 7 and Iran’s Foreign Ministry declaring it “suspended” a week later.
Under that memorandum of understanding, Iran and the US committed to negotiating a final deal — covering broader issues such as the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme — in a maximum of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent. Today marks 60 days since the MOU was signed.
Separately, Oman and Iran have been in talks to try to reach an agreement to restore commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which carried 20 per cent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies before the US-Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” Trump told Fox News.
The dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up fuel prices and put pressure on Trump to end a war that is unpopular at home ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of the US Congress.
Trump told Fox News that the midterms are not impacting his strategy on Iran.
“Midterms have nothing to do with my thinking,” he said.
Earlier today, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon”, repeating one of his stated rationales for the war.
