AGENCIES

President Donald Trump has said the United States would emerge victorious in its standoff with Iran, whether through diplomacy or military force. He also signalled a possible meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei if the agreement is sealed.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday evening, Trump suggested that the conflict could be resolved either through military means or diplomacy, as negotiations continue over a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending months of hostilities.

“We’re going to win one way or the other,” Trump said, adding, “It’s going to be militarily or on paper.”

He said that Washington did not need a deal with Iran to get enriched uranium from the country. “We could get it right now. I don’t think they could stop us if we wanted, but there’s no reason to. It’s entombed,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump also said that he did not want to meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. But he added that if Washington and Tehran reached a deal, it was possible that the two would meet and added: “If it happened ... I’d be respectful”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has dismissed the idea of his country’s Supreme Leader meeting Trump. “I saw a report which apparently said that he (Trump) had stated that he was ready for a meeting or that he wanted to hold a meeting,” Araghchi told Al Mayadeen television channel.

“I think we should be realistic and think and live in the real world,” he said.

“This war will end only when it ends in Lebanon as well,” Araghchi said, adding: “The end of the war on Lebanon must be accompanied by the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they have occupied.”

Iran’s navy said yesterday it had fired warning shots at US destroyers in the Gulf of Oman to counter “maritime mischief and harassment and the hijacking of commercial vessels and oil tankers”. Earlier, US forces said they had boarded an oil tanker in the Indian Ocean and said they would continue to block “vessels providing material support to Iran”.

In Oman, an alleged drone attack forced the suspension of oil loading at the Mina al Fahal terminal after an explosion, sources said, before normal operations resumed.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in the historic south Lebanon city of Tyre killed seven people, a source from the civil defence told AFP yesterday, despite a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

One strike near Jabal Amel hospital killed four people, wounded seven and lightly

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