Washington, DC [US], July 13 : US President Donald Trump on Sunday issued a scathing warning against Iran, claiming to take over the critical chokehold, the Strait of Hormuz, while condemning Tehran for dishonouring the ceasefire agreement amid the ongoing unrest.
In a telephonic interview with Fox News, Trump asserted that Iran broke a “done deal”, agreed just the night before.
Expressing his infuriation over Iran’s actions, the US president said, “It looks like they’re back at their business trying to take over the Strait. We’re taking over the Strait. They have nothing.”
“Yesterday, they had an 11-hour meeting and everything was agreed to yesterday. They leave the room and they call back and they say, ‘we had to make a couple of changes’… for 47 years, they’ve been tapping people along… this should’ve been done 47 years ago,” he added.
He further lashed out at the Iranian leadership for disregarding the truce agreements, claiming that the two sides have had “10 deals” in the past, calling them “a bad group of people”. He further revealed that the US hammered Iranian equipment in overnight strikes.
“It was a done deal, and then they broke it. They always break it. We’ve had 10 deals with these people — and so we’re just going to hit them very hard and we’re going to keep the Strait and we’ll probably run. Most of their equipment is gone. Their anti-aircraft gun, we hit them very hard last night. Every time they send a drone, we hit them very hard,” he said.
“They’re a bad group of people. They’ve been this way for a long time,” he added.
Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned US strikes against Tehran and accused Washington of disrupting global commercial shipping by interfering with security arrangements in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
In a formal statement posted on X, the ministry argued that recent US actions have put international maritime trade at risk and re-ignited active conflict in the region.
The ministry strongly condemned a wave of aggressive, brutal US attacks carried out over the past 24 hours.
According to Iranian officials, these strikes represent a gross violation of United Nations Charter principles and pose a “severe threat” to global peace.
“Iran’s MFA strongly condemns US aggressive attacks against Iran over the past 24 hours. These brutal attacks constitute a gross violation of the UN Charter principles, notably Art. 2(4), and pose a severe threat to international peace and security,” the post read.
The Ministry charged that the US has already broken nearly all provisions of the ceasefire agreement, “just after 25 days…by striking Iran’s transport infrastructure, fishing boats, cargo barges, and meteorological facilities, committing heinous war crimes.”
The Foriegn Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei declared that the bilateral memorandum of understanding with the US has plunged into a “crisis phase.”
According to Fars news agency, Baghaei claimed that the US moved to sabotage the deal almost immediately, adding, “The Americans were so impatient in breaching the agreement that they didn’t even allow Iran’s one-month timeframe for commitments regarding the Strait of Hormuz to conclude.”
The war of words came as the US Central Command (CENTCOM) made an announcement by the American military that it had conducted a fresh series of offensive strikes on 12 July, hitting dozens of locations throughout Iran.
In an official statement released alongside the footage, CENTCOM detailed that American forces targeted Iranian air defence infrastructure, coastal radar facilities, missile and drone infrastructure, and fast-attack military craft.
In retaliation, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, Al Jazeera reported. (ANI)
