US President Donald Trump on Thursday issued a sharp directive on Iran, stating that he has ordered the United States Navy to โshoot and killโ any vessel found laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. โI have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine โsweepersโ are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level! Thank you for your attention to this matter,โ he said on Truth Social.
Trump saysย US mine-clearing operations are already underway in Hormuzย
He added that added that US mine-clearing operations are already underway in the region, with naval โsweepersโ actively working to clear the strait. He also stated that he has instructed that these operations continue at an intensified pace, directing forces to scale up efforts to โa tripled-up levelโ amid rising tensions.
Earlier, Trump extended the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely at the request of Pakistan to give Tehran’s leadership more time to prepare a unified proposal to end the war, even as Iranian forces fired on three ships and seized two of them in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.
Trump’s dramatic announcement, welcomed by Pakistan’s top leadership, came just hours before the two-week ceasefire was set to expire. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Tehran has not issued any official statement confirming its agreement to extend the ceasefire. Pakistan had urged an extension of the truce due to uncertainty surrounding the second round of talks. There was still no clarity on the date of the next round of talks.
Trump says second round of US-Iran talks could take place on Friday
On Wednesday, The New York Post quoted President Trump as saying that the second round of the US-Iran talks could take place as early as Friday. Such development was “possible” within the next 36 to 72 hours, the paper reported, quoting Trump.
However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Tehran has not yet decided whether to attend a new round of Pakistani-mediated talks in Islamabad. “We have made it clear that if we conclude that going to Islamabad is in our national interest, we would go there. But for the time being, the decision has not yet been made,” Baqaei told the BBC on Wednesday.
Baqaei said Iran’s delegation had travelled to Pakistan for the first round of talks “with good faith and sense of seriousness, but you have a negotiating party that has shown its lack of seriousness, lack of good faith”. The extension of the truce effectively delayed the planned visit of a US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance to Islamabad for talks with Iranian interlocutors.
The first round of US-Iran talks held on April 11 and 12 failed to produce a breakthrough, prompting a flurry of diplomatic efforts by host Pakistan to cool tensions and revive hopes for another round of dialogue. The Iran war began on February 28 with US-Israeli strikes.
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