DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted to take Iran’s oil and suggested American troops could seize the country’s Kharg Island export hub, even as he added in comments published Monday that a deal with Tehran to end the war “could be made fairly quickly.”
On the ground, the war showed no sign of letting up: Tehran struck a key water and electrical plant in Kuwait, and an oil refinery in Israel came under attack.
Israel and the U.S. launched a new wave of strikes on Iran.
Trump’s comments in an interview with the Financial Times highlight how he has repeatedly said that talks with Iran are ongoing — and even going well — though Tehran denies negotiating directly. But at the same time, he has continually ramped up his threats, as thousands more Marines and other U.S. troops pour into the Middle East.
It remains unclear where the diplomatic effort facilitated by Pakistan stands. Iran’s attacks on its Gulf neighbors could add another element of uncertainty to any talks. The United Arab Emirates — which has long billed itself as a beacon of safety and stability in a volatile region — has been hard hit in the war, and increasingly is signaling it wants Iran disarmed in any ceasefire. Iran’s theocracy likely won’t accept that.
In the interview with the FT, Trump said his preference would be to “take the oil in Iran” — a move that would require seizing Kharg Island — the terminal through which nearly all of Iran’s oil exports pass.
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t,” he continued. “We have a lot of options.”
Also in the interview, Trump said that the U.S. had about 3,000 targets that it would still like to hit in Iran, but adding: “A deal could be made fairly quickly.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One late Sunday that the U.S. was negotiating “directly and indirectly” with Iran.
“We’re doing extremely well in that negotiation but you never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up,” Trump said.
Twice during Trump’s second term, the U.S. has attacked Iran while in the middle of negotiations, once with the strikes on Feb. 28 that started the current war and also in June.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei on Monday acknowledged Tehran had been given a 15-point proposal from the Trump administration, but said there had been no direct negotiations with Washington so far.
Earlier, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, dismissed the talks in Pakistan as a cover to get more U.S. troops into the area. He said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners forever,” according to state media.
The U.S. already launched airstrikes once that targeted military positions on Kharg. Iran has threatened to launch its own ground invasion of Gulf Arab countries and mine the Persian Gulf if U.S. troops land on its territory.
To get an amphibious invasion force to Kharg would mean transiting the Strait of Hormuz and most of the Persian Gulf. Experts say that holding the island would also be a challenge, because in addition to its missiles and drones, it would be well within artillery range from the Iranian mainland.
Sirens sounded at dawn near Israel's main nuclear research center, a part of the country that has been targeted repeatedly in recent days. Israel's military also said it had taken out two drones launched from Yemen, where the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels entered the war on Saturday with their first missile attack.
Later, a fire broke out at an oil refinery in the northern city of Haifa, one of only two in Israel, either from a missile strike or from debris falling from an interception. The blaze was quickly extinguished.
Iran kept up the pressure on its Gulf Arab neighbors, as Saudi Arabia intercepted five missiles targeting its oil-rich Eastern province, Bahrain sounded a missile alert, and a fireball erupted over Dubai as an incoming missile was taken out by defenses.
In Kuwait, an Iranian attack hit a power and desalination plant, killing one worker and injuring 10 soldiers, the state-run KUNA news agency reported.
Desalination plants are crucial to water supplies in the Gulf Arab states, and an Iranian attack previously damaged a desalination plant in Bahrain during the war. The facilities are typically paired with power plants, because of the large amount of energy required to remove salt from the water to make it drinkable.
Israel’s military launched a new wave of attacks on Iran, saying it was striking “military infrastructure” across Tehran, and explosions were heard in the Iranian capital. Iranian state media reported a petrochemicals plant in Tabriz, in the north, sustained damage after an airstrike and firefighters had to put out a blaze.
Iran confirmed on Monday that the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s navy, Rear Adm. Alireza Tangsiri, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, as Israel claimed last week.
In Lebanon, which Israel has invaded by ground, an Indonesian peacekeeper was killed and three others were wounded when a projectile exploded near a village in the south.
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military will widen its invasion, expanding the “existing security strip” in that country’s south as it targets the Iran-linked Hezbollah militant group.
Meanwhile, Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war, Defense Minister Margarita Robles said Monday. Spain had already said the U.S. could not use jointly operated military bases in the country for operations related to the conflict.
Spain’s government under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been Europe’s most critical voice of U.S. and Israeli military actions in the Middle East.
Iran's attacks on the energy infrastructure of the region and its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is shipped in peacetime, has sent oil prices skyrocketing and given rise to growing concerns about a global energy crisis.
In early trading, the spot price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, was around $115, up nearly 60% from when the U.S. and Israel started the war with attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
As pressure has grown on Trump to bring an end to the conflict, the U.S. has presented Iran a 15-point plan that includes it agreeing to open the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. Iran, meantime, has produced a five-point plan with its own terms, including maintaining its sovereignty over the key waterway.
Pakistan announced Sunday that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran, though there was no immediate word from Washington or Tehran, and it was unclear whether discussions on the monthlong war would be direct or indirect.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar the talks would be held "in the coming days.”
In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.
In Lebanon, officials said more than 1,200 people have been killed, including 12 soldiers, and more than 1 million have been displaced. Israel announced Monday that another of its soldiers had been killed there, the sixth during the war.
In Iraq, where Iranian-supported militia groups have entered the conflict, 80 members of the security forces have died.
In Gulf states, 20 people have been killed. Four have been killed in the occupied West Bank.
Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed in the war.
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Rising reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville aboard Air Force One, Melanie Lidman, Tel Aviv, Israel, Giovanna Dell'Orto in Miami, Florida and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this story.
