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US President Donald Trump said on Monday he would seek conflict compensation from Iran as part of any peace negotiations, citing attacks and killings stretching back decades allegedly backed or perpetrated by Tehran.
Negotiations on ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz have stalled and his new demands risk putting a quick agreement further out of reach.
Trump’s announcement was a direct response to Iran’s insistence that US payment of war reparations are a pre-condition to any resolution of the ongoing hostilities.
“I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran,” he said, noting that his demand included not only damages arising from the current war, but also Iranian attacks on US targets going back more than two decades as well as payments to the families of Iranian protestors killed by authorities over the past 50 years.
In a later post, Trump also said that the Islamic republic should be responsible for deaths and damage it caused in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Gaza.
In what has become a regular pattern, Trump last week threatened to hit Iran “very hard,” potentially with attacks against civilian infrastructure, only to pull back, hinting a peace deal was near.
Trump this weekend said he was “low-keying” his approach to the conflict, suggesting that he was prepared to let economic pressure mount in place of further military strikes.
Digital media outlet Axios said that the US president did not express any frustration with Iran’s delaying an agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz in their interview with him published on Sunday.
Tehran has demanded that the US first end its blockade of Iranian ports and lift sanctions on its oil industry.
As negotiations have floundered, the strait’s blockage by Iran has sent fuel prices soaring and rattled the world economy, putting pressure on Trump ahead of midterm elections in November.
In his post, Trump referenced the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, which he has previously said Iran was “probably involved” in.
On Monday he said his various demands for compensations would be put “firmly into any, and all, future negotiations” with Iran.
Military shake-up
Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei named Revolutionary Guards general Ali Abdollahi head of the country’s armed forces on Monday, while also confirming a new commander of the Guards, putting his imprimatur on the country’s military.
Abdollahi had previously led the Khatam al-Anbiya, Iran’s inter-branch central military command tasked with coordinating operations.
An statement on Khamenei’s website announced that “Major General Ali Abdollahi has been appointed chief of staff of the armed forces. Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi has also been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with the rank of major general.”
The pair represent Khamenei’s first senior military appointments since being named supreme leader early in war after the death of his father in US-Israeli strikes.
Abdollahi has issued bellicose threats over the course of the war, warning regional neighbours earlier this month that “any country serving as a defensive shield for criminal and aggressive America will be engulfed by the flames of war.”
Additional sources • AFP