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The United States and Iran paused strikes for a third night on Sunday as Washington and Tehran look to give peace talks another chance.
Speaking to US media, US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said President Donald Trump was “giving diplomacy some space” and “time.”
“He is giving diplomacy a chance,” Waltz told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“We’ll see over the next coming days. But make no mistake, additional military assets are moving into the region,” he said, adding: “The regime should believe the president when he says they’re locked and loaded, and where all options are on the table.”
On Sunday, a spokesperson for the Iranian army announced that Tehran had also halted “retaliatory operations” in the region.
It follows 13 consecutive nights of US strikes on Iran, which the US military said aimed to “degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The Strait has been at the centre of tensions between Washington and Tehran and formed a key part of the “memorandum of understanding” that the two sides agreed to in June.
Under the terms of the provisional deal, Iran was required to reopen the waterway, which is one of the world’s most crucial oil and gas transit chokepoints, and reaffirm that it “shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons”. For its part, the US said it would remove its naval blockade of Iran and drop sanctions on Tehran. The agreement gave the two countries 60 days to work out a final deal.
But Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz prompted fresh US strikes and a renewed naval blockade of Iranian ports, threatening peace efforts.
US Central Command said that as of Saturday, its forces had “redirected” 12 commercial vessels trying to bypass the blockade, “disabled” two that did not comply with the orders, and boarded another two “to ensure total compliance.”
In response to US military action, Tehran has launched strikes on American military bases across the Middle East, targeting facilities in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
Iranian officials threaten Ukraine
Tehran is also locked in a diplomatic clash with Kyiv following a Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea on Saturday, which Ukraine said was being used to transport military cargo between Iran and Russia.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said the strike killed a sailor and warned that it “cannot go unanswered.”
Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security commission in the Iranian parliament, added that “any attack on Iran always comes with a cost.”
“Ukraine, too, may soon come to understand that Iran does not let actions go unanswered,” he wrote in a post on social media.