DUBAI, July 11: US and Iranian leaders traded further threats on Saturday as the interim deal to end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the Middle East.
President Donald Trump upped threats of further missile attacks against Iran in a string of comments on his Truth Social that came after senior US officials demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and that ships crossing the vital corridor won’t be attacked.
Trump also made the comments after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for the US leader’s killing.
Later Saturday, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed that Iranians would continue to avenge the killing of his father, Ali Khamenei, who was mourned in funeral events throughout Iran this week. He said in remarks carried by state television that such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out.”
So far, Tehran has not submitted to US demands over the Strait of Hormuz, instead insisting that the route remain under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through it.
There had been multiple days of US airstrikes targeting Iran, as well as Iranian retaliatory fire targeting nations across the Middle East. Those strikes had been sparked by Iran attacking three ships in the strait earlier this week.
On Truth Social on Friday, Trump declared the ceasefire over but said the US would continue negotiations. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi travelled to Oman for more talks on Saturday, a day after Qatari mediators separately travelled to Iran to meet with officials amid the regional strikes.
Trump makes online threat
A thousand “missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.
The US president said he was responding to threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners repeatedly held posters or banners calling for him to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump added in his post that the US military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran — PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”
Trump, repeatedly during the war and its uneasy ceasefire, has invoked the name of God in Arabic, as well as threatened to destroy Iran’s very civilisation. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, has in the past criticized Trump’s “deranged mocking of Islam.”
The Strait is major point of contention
US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners trying to sabotage the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.
However, Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified after the war under the country’s new supreme leader.
The US officials said Friday that Trump is giving US negotiators limited time to reach a deal with Iran but, in a sign of the challenges ahead, they underscored that the president had a wide range of options if talks fall apart.
Moments before the US officials spoke, however, Tehran’s diplomat at the United Nations told reporters that any activity in the Strait of Hormuz, including its opening or demining operations, “rests exclusively with Iran.”
Iran has said the strait must now be under its sole control and that vessels should begin paying fees to Tehran — even though the world has for decades considered it an international waterway. About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began.
Turn over enriched uranium: US to Iran
The US officials also told journalists that any deal on Iran’s nuclear program would require Tehran to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. That’s something Iran has repeatedly refused.
If the US does not reach a deal with Iran to turn over its nuclear material, it has military options to ensure that it remains buried underground forever, the officials said. They did not detail those options.
The uranium, enriched to near weapons-grade levels, is believed to be at nuclear sites the US bombed in 2025. Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency saying the Islamic Republic is the only country in the world to enrich uranium so highly without a weapons program.
The officials also insisted that they would never reach a nuclear deal with Iran if it did not first stop its attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran may be rebuilding nuclear facilities
Iran appears to have begun repairing and rebuilding parts of its nuclear infrastructure weeks after the US-Israel strikes, according to newly available satellite imagery. This can be a development that raises fresh questions over whether Tehran is complying with the memorandum of understanding (MoU) it signed with the United States in late June.
According to a report, one of the most significant developments has been observed at the Parchin military complex, a site that Western intelligence agencies have long linked to research involving high explosives with potential applications in nuclear weapons development. Satellite imagery indicates that Iran has begun repair work at parts of the site damaged during the US-Israeli bombing campaign earlier this year. Experts cited by CNN said the activity appears consistent with efforts to seal strike craters inflicted by US strikes on the nuclear sites in June 2025.
Pak PM holds talks with Iran, Qatar leaders
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held separate talks with the leaders of Iran and Qatar in an effort to revive the stalled US-Iran negotiations.
The talks were held on Friday night as efforts picked up pace to mend the broken peace bridge between the warring sides after the recent escalation and attacks on the rival targets.
In his conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Sharif expressed “deep concern over the recent escalation in tensions in the region” and underscored the urgent need to “restore regional peace and stability,” according to a statement by the PM Office.
He urged parties to “exercise restraint and refrain from any action that could jeopardise the hard-earned peace gains achieved over the past few months”.
Sharif stressed the importance of upholding the commitments undertaken under the Islamabad MoU, describing it as an enduring framework for promoting mutual understanding, respect and shared prosperity in the region and beyond. (Agencies)
