DUBAI\/JERUSALEM\/PALM BEACH, Florida: U.S. officials responding to economic uncertainty over high oil prices predicted on Sunday that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran would end within weeks and that a drop in energy costs would follow, despite Iran’s assertion that it remains “stable and strong” and ready to defend itself.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald \u200bTrump threatened more strikes on Iran’s main oil export hub Kharg Island over the weekend and said he was not ready to reach a deal to end the war which has shut off the vital Strait of Hormuz and shaken up global energy markets.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration plans to announce as early as this week that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition to escort ships through the narrow waterway but they are still discussing whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed U.S. officials. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Trump, who on Friday said the U.S. Navy would “soon” start escorting oil tankers, has said Iran wants to negotiate, but Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on Sunday disputed that claim.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiations,” Araqchi told CBS’ “Face the Nation” program. “We are ready to defend ourselves for as long as it takes.\u201d<\/p>\n
With crude oil prices hovering around $100 a barrel, Trump administration officials \u200cinsisted that all \u200csigns point to a relatively quick end to the conflict.<\/p>\n
“This conflict will certainly come to the end in \u200bthe \u200cnext few weeks \u2014 \u2060could \u200bbe \u2060sooner than that … and we’ll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down of prices after that,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told ABC’s “This Week” program.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Araqchi sought to project an image of strength.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a war of survival. We are stable and strong enough,” Araqchi told CBS. “We don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us, and that was for the second time.”<\/p>\n
With the war entering its third week, Trump said on Saturday that U.S. strikes had “totally demolished” much of Kharg Island and warned of more, telling NBC News on Saturday, “We may hit it a few more times just for fun.”<\/p>\n
The comments marked a sharp escalation from Trump, who had previously said the U.S. was targeting only military sites on Kharg, and dealt a blow to diplomatic efforts to end a war that has spread across the Middle East \u2060and killed more than 2,000 people, most in Iran and Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Washington has brushed aside attempts by Middle Eastern allies to \u200copen talks, three sources told Reuters, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday they had fired more missiles at \u200cIsrael and three U.S. bases in the region.<\/p>\n
But Israel and Lebanon are expected to hold talks \u200bin coming days aimed at securing a ceasefire that would see Iran-backed Hezbollah disarmed, two \u200cIsraeli officials said. Lebanon was sucked into the war when Hezbollah opened fire at Israel, saying it was to avenge the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, \u200cand Israel has responded with a fierce offensive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DUBAI\/JERUSALEM\/PALM BEACH, Florida: U.S. officials responding to economic uncertainty over high oil prices predicted on Sunday that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran would end within weeks and that a drop in energy costs would follow, despite Iran’s assertion that it remains “stable and strong” and ready to defend itself. U.S. President Donald \u200bTrump threatened more …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95144","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\/95144","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=95144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95164,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95144\/revisions\/95164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}