Welcome to our continuing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, as Donald Trump prepares to address America for the first time since the US-Israel war on Iran was launched.
The president will deliver the prime-time speech at 9pm ET from the White House.
The address comes as his administration faces plunging approval ratings, economic jitters and a spiralling diplomatic fallout. Trump is expected to try and reassure the nation that US goals are being met and that he has a plan for completing the war, which has roiled the US economy.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump claimed a major breakthrough, saying Iran’s president was seeking a ceasefire. This was swiftly denied by Iran’s foreign ministry, which also accused Washington of making “maximalist and irrational” demands.
Iran has rejected Donald Trump’s claim that its leadership asked for a ceasefire, calling the US president’s statement “false” and “baseless”. Trump made the claim in a post on Truth Social, which said: “Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
Trump also said he is “absolutely” considering withdrawing the US from Nato, warning that the matter was “beyond reconsideration” after the refusal of US allies to join the US-Israeli war against Iran. The president’s threats, his most determined to date, have left the alliance facing its worst crisis in its 77-year history, a former US ambassador has said. Here’s our story.
Meanwhile, in an open letter to the American people, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said relations between Washington and Tehran were “misunderstood” and that Iran was not an aggressor. The Iranian “harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighbouring countries,” he said, adding that portrayals of Iran as a security threat were inaccurate, and Tehran was acting in self-defence – not aggression.
In Tehran, Kamal Kharazi, a top foreign policy official and former Iranian foreign minister, has been severely injured in an airstrike on his home in the Iranian capital. His wife was reportedly killed in the attack. Kharazi, considered a moderate politician and veteran policy expert, also served as an adviser to the assassinated former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Reports suggest his targeting is being viewed as an attempt to derail diplomacy.
