BEIRUT\/WASHINGTON\/JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump demanded Iran\u2019s \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d on Friday, a dramatic escalation of his demands a week into the war he launched alongside Israel.<\/p>\n
Trump made the remarks on social media just hours after Iran\u2019s president announced that unspecified countries had begun mediation efforts in one of \u200cthe first signals \u200cof any diplomatic initiative to end \u200bthe \u200cconflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere \u2060will be \u200bno \u2060deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday \u2060Trump had told Reuters in a telephone \u200cinterview that he was demanding the \u200cright to help select Iran\u2019s new supreme \u200bleader, to replace Ayatollah \u200cAli Khamenei, killed in the war\u2019s first day.<\/p>\n
Israel pounded the \u200cLebanese capital Beirut on Friday after ordering an unprecedented evacuation of the entire southern suburbs of the city, in a major expansion of the war.<\/p>\n
It also launched a new wave of attacks on \u200cIran, saying 50 of its warplanes had struck a bunker beneath the destroyed Tehran compound of \u2060Khamenei, still \u2060being used by Iran\u2019s leadership after he was killed.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X: \u201cSome countries have begun mediation efforts.\u201d He did not identify the countries or provide further details.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s be clear: we are committed to lasting peace in the region, but we have not the slightest hesitation in defending the dignity and authority of our country. Mediation should address those who underestimated the Iranian people and ignited this conflict,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Under Iran\u2019s system, the president is subordinate \u200bto the supreme leader, but \u200bPezeshkian is now serving on a panel that has assumed Khamenei\u2019s duties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIRUT\/WASHINGTON\/JERUSALEM: US President Donald Trump demanded Iran\u2019s \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d on Friday, a dramatic escalation of his demands a week into the war he launched alongside Israel. Trump made the remarks on social media just hours after Iran\u2019s president announced that unspecified countries had begun mediation efforts in one of \u200cthe first signals \u200cof any diplomatic …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92099,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94741,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94726\/revisions\/94741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}