US President Donald Trump. Photo: REUTERS
US President Donald Trump said in a recent interview with NBC News that he would not unfreeze Iranian assets or lift any sanctions before a peace deal is reached.
He said he would consider those steps after an agreement is done. “Comes after,” he said. “Yeah. If they behave, if they do a good job, we start talking. Yeah.”
Trump also said that he was not demanding that Lebanon be a part of a short-term deal with Tehran. “I think they’d like to see it, but I’m not demanding,” Trump said in the interview recorded on Friday.
US and Israeli forces began strikes on Iran on February 28. The Trump administration has been trying to negotiate a potential peace deal for weeks. “We’re very close to a deal, or I’m going to blow the hell out of them,” Trump told NBC News.
The president also said he would be willing to speak with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since being wounded in US strikes at the beginning of the conflict.
“I don’t want to say whether or not I know where he is, but there’s a good probability that I do,” Trump said.
Top Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio insist a temporary ceasefire agreement has been holding up despite recent US strikes on Iran, telling lawmakers last week those are defensive actions.
US eyes Iranian assets for Gulf allies’ reconstruction, source says
The US will attempt to redirect Iranian assets to Gulf states for rebuilding and repairs of damage caused by Iran, a source familiar with the matter said, as Tehran followed up a wave of strikes against Kuwait and Bahrain with further drone launches.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has directed a team to assess costs for damage inflicted on Gulf allies by Iran, the source said on Saturday, adding the US will consider using Iranian assets for repairs of any future destruction as well.
The disclosure came a day after Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, told CNN that a peace deal to end the three-month-old war hinged on the release of $24 billion in Iranian assets frozen by the United States.
The source did not specify what kind of assets the Treasury was examining. The language used to describe the new measures did not appear limited to frozen assets.
The threat to redirect Iranian assets could create a new irritant to a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran, which was tested again this weekend with strikes by both nations.
Peace negotiations appear to have stalled, although a minister from mediator Pakistan traveled to Tehran on Saturday with a letter for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
US forces struck Iranian coastal radar sites in Goruk and Qeshm Island, both in the Strait of Hormuz, early on Saturday after shooting down drones launched by Iran that US Central Command says posed a threat to maritime traffic. Two more Iranian attack drones that were threatening shipping in the strait were shot down, the US military said late on Saturday.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it retaliated against US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, and Kuwait’s army said it engaged seven ballistic missiles that passed over residential areas, resulting in material damage but no casualties.
In Bahrain, sirens sounded and residents were urged to seek shelter. Kuwait and Bahrain condemned the strikes.
Iran later said it had hit US bases in both countries with ballistic missiles, but the US military said six missiles were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its target.
