US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has threatened to bomb Oman if it \u201cgets in the way\u201d of a US deal with Iran on the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Oman gets in the way, we\u2019ll bomb the shit out of them,\u201d Trump told Fox News journalist Trey Yingst, referring to ongoing talks between Oman and Iran on control of the strait, while Washington is also pursuing its own talks.<\/p>\n
Iranian and Omani officials have been talking for weeks on future maritime navigation arrangements through the shipping route, and the foreign ministry in Tehran said earlier today that the two sides were working on a joint declaration.<\/p>\n
However, Trump has repeatedly insisted that the strait \u2013 which Tehran effectively closed at the start of the Middle East war on 28 February \u2013 is under US control despite traffic remaining throttled.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Trump claimed that he would even declare the Strait of Hormuz part of US territory, while Iran retorted that the crucial energy waterway it has blockaded \u201cwill remain Iranian.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the US-Israeli war against Iran, the Hormuz strait was considered an open, international waterway. It carries significant portions of global energy shipments, as well as other commodities.<\/p>\n
Tehran has used its effective seizing of control over the strait as leverage against the US-led attempts to destroy its military and force it to abandon a controversial nuclear power program.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s coast flanks the north side of Hormuz and Oman lies on the south.<\/p>\n
Trump also said that Iran should \u201cput up the white flag of surrender,\u201d according to Yingst\u2019s post on X on his interview with the president.<\/p>\n
Trump insisted that he was in no hurry to reach a deal despite the deep unpopularity of the war among Americans ahead of November midterm elections in the United States, with opposition Democrats seeking to take control of Congress from Trump\u2019s Republicans.<\/p>\n
Trump told Yingst that there is a direct back-channel between his administration and officials of Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re good poker players, but they\u2019re dying,\u201d he was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has threatened to bomb Oman if it \u201cgets in the way\u201d of a US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[271977,9,10,18,13,14,24985,98608,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-642840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bomb-threat","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fox-news","tag-he","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117114234854148335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}