The leader of Iran's joint military command threatened to halt trade in the Gulf region if the US does not lift its blockade of Iranian ports. Even so, US President Donald Trump said the war in Iran was “very close to over” in an interview that aired on Wednesday.
Separately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that the US is preparing to ramp up economic pain on Iran by levying secondary sanctions on financial institutions that do business with the Middle Eastern nation. Bessent called the measure the “financial equivalent” of the bombing campaign.
Mediators' efforts to extend a US-Iran ceasefire made progress as the two sides are expected to hold another round of negotiations, regional officials said. However, a senior US official stated that Washington has not formally agreed to extend the ceasefire. A Pakistani delegation arrived in Tehran for talks in the latest diplomatic move.
Israel, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with its aerial and ground war against the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, a day after the two nations held their first direct talks in decades.
The military adviser to Iran's supreme leader is not in support of extending the ceasefire.
“We are subject to the decisions of the relevant officials, but personally I do not agree to extend the ceasefire,” said Mohsen Rezaei, formerly a commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who now advises Mojtaba Khamenei on military affairs, Iranian state media reported.
Rezaei also urged officials to be more cautious than they had been before in negotiations over economic matters with the US, adding that it is Tehran who is setting the preconditions in the next round of talks, not Washington.
“Unlike the Americans who are afraid of continuous war, we are fully prepared and familiar with a long war,” he said, according to the report.
Iran has demanded a truce between Israel and its proxy Hezbollah as a condition to return to talks with the United States. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the current fighting is concentrated in the strategic south Lebanon town of Bint Jbeil, where their troops are about to “eliminate this great stronghold of Hezbollah.”
In a video address Wednesday evening, he said that Israel has given instructions for the military to continue to widen the security zone in south Lebanon — a reference to areas close to the border that the Israeli army now occupies — and to spread it eastward.
As per his statement, Israel is concurrently negotiating with Lebanon, with the main focus on two goals — disarming Hezbollah and achieving a sustainable peace. He then also said the US was updating Israel on the talks with Iran and that Israel is prepared for any situation if the war resumes.
“Peace through strength,” he added.
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