Dubai: Iran on Tuesday strongly condemned US strikes carried out a day earlier, calling them a sign of “bad faith and unreliability” even as negotiations continue toward a possible agreement aimed at ending the ongoing conflict.
The US military described Monday’s strikes in southern Iran as defensive in nature, stating that the targets included missile launch sites and boats allegedly preparing to deploy mines. It also said the United States acted with “restraint” given the weekslong ceasefire.
Iran’s foreign ministry, however, termed the strikes a violation of the ceasefire and warned that Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences”, without providing further details.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered,” the ministry said in a statement.
Separately, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed on Tuesday that it had shot down and deterred drones and a fighter jet that entered its airspace, according to the state-run Mizan news agency. The report did not specify when the incident took place.
It remains unclear what impact the latest developments will have on ongoing negotiations. The strikes came shortly after Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited Qatar as part of the talks, which US President Donald Trump said were “proceeding nicely” on Monday.
The latest escalation comes amid a fragile ceasefire that began on April 7 and has largely held. The talks focus in part on the Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping route off southern Iran through which about one-fifth of the world’s crude oil and natural gas flowed before the war began with US-Israeli strikes in February. Iran retaliated by effectively closing the strait, leaving hundreds of ships stranded and disrupting the global economy.
The strait has become a key bargaining tool for Tehran alongside its nuclear programme and highly enriched uranium enrichment activities. Iran is also seeking the lifting of a US military blockade on its ports, imposed on April 17.
The disruption has also raised global concern over agricultural supply chains, particularly fertiliser shortages affecting vulnerable farmers worldwide.
“What we are witnessing today is not only a geopolitical crisis, it is a systemic shock to the global agrifood system,” said Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump has introduced a new dimension to the negotiations, suggesting that any final agreement should require additional countries — including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — to join the Abraham Accords, a series of US-brokered agreements aimed at normalising relations with Israel.
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates joined the accords in 2020, followed by Sudan, Morocco and Kazakhstan. Egypt and Jordan already maintain formal peace treaties with Israel, while Turkey recognised Israel in 1949.
Although Israel’s actions in Gaza and its wider conflict with Palestinians have strained relations with several Gulf and Muslim-majority countries, Trump has pushed to expand the Abraham Accords further, even suggesting that Iran could eventually join.
With PTI inputs