U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the memorandum of understanding inked between Washington and Tehran to end the conflict is “over,” adding he no longer wants to engage with Iran.
Speaking in Ankara ahead of a NATO summit, he said he did not believe the ceasefire remained intact. “I don’t want to deal with them anymore; they’re scum … they’re led by sick people,” he said. “I’ll speak to our negotiators, they want to negotiate … but they have to come back to me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time,” he added.
Trump’s statement followed a resumption in hostilities overnight, with the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claiming they had hit dozens of American military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation to strikes by the U.S. In a statement, the Iranian military warned any site enabling the United States to attack the country would be considered a “legitimate target.”
According to the IRGC, Iran’s Navy and Aerospace Force conducted a joint missile and drone operation, striking 85 key U.S. military facilities” in Bahrain and Kuwait. The assault followed a statement in which Iran warned it would not allow U.S. interference in the management of the Strait of Hormuz.
A day earlier, the U.S. military had launched fresh strikes on Iran and revoked a license allowing the country to sell oil after the IRGC struck three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Confirming that it had hit over 80 targets, U.S. Central Command said this included more than 60 small boats in a bid to degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping.
“The unwarranted aggression by Iranian forces is a clear and dangerous violation of the ceasefire and undermines freedom of navigation,” said CENTCOM. According to Reuters, additional targets included Iranian air defense systems, coastal surveillance systems, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles and drone launch sites.
Earlier, Qatar blamed Iran for attacking the three vessels, including a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker, the Al Rekayyat, which reported being struck overnight by a drone that caused a fire in its engine room. The crew were safe and being evacuated. A Saudi-flagged crude oil tanker, believed to be the supertanker Wedyan, was also damaged off Oman though the cause was not immediately clear.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said it had summoned Iran’s deputy ambassador and handed him a protest note following the attack on the tanker. Iran’s foreign ministry said Qatar’s accusations were perplexing and that Tehran was diligently fulfilling its commitments but asserted that commercial vessels faced risks for using routes not coordinated with Iran.
Kuwait has also condemned Iranian attacks on its soil, saying this undermined efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region. In a statement, Kuwait’s foreign ministry said it expresses its “strongest condemnation and denunciation of the repeated, illicit Iranian attacks.” It said “the continuation of these brazen attacks—at a time when regional and international efforts toward de-escalation are underway—systematically undermines efforts to lower tensions.”