New attacks on shipping as Iran war talks hit fresh impasse

Asked about an incident in which he switched planes in Türkiye last month because of worries over reports of a potential Iranian assassination threat, Trump suggested the alternative aircraft may have faced greater risk.

“That would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for,” he told reporters after The Washington Post broke the story about him secretly taking a military flight instead of Air Force One in an operation involving him being moved between aircraft in a catering truck.

“Any consequential president has a lot of threats,” Trump added. “I don’t worry about anything.”

The comments from Rezaei, appointed on Sunday as second-in-command of the body that coordinates Iran’s security and foreign policy, were the strongest indication the Strait of Hormuz would not reopen to shipping anytime soon. The waterway handled a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flow before the war.

“As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened,” Rezaei said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

There was no immediate comment from Washington on Iran’s latest comments.

Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Feb 28.

Iran has struck US assets and infrastructure in countries including Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Raising the prospect of further escalation, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, an adviser to the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said on Iranian state TV on Tuesday that the corps was developing the ability to carry out operations “on enemy soil”.

“We need to be able to move the operations to the enemy’s soil, whenever this is needed and ordered,” he said. “This is the characteristic of the offensive doctrine that has to be attained.”