President Donald Trump will hold a news conference Monday with leaders of the military as the deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz loomed.
Trump’s White House news conference is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET.
Trump gave Tehran a deadline that expires Monday night Washington time, saying if no deal was reached to reopen the strait, the U.S. would hit Iran’s power plants and other infrastructure targets and set the country “back to the stone ages.”
It comes as Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and wants a permanent end to the war. The agency said it has conveyed its response to the U.S. through Pakistan, a key mediator.
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Trump responded with a new harsh warning to Iran.
“They just don’t want to say ‘uncle,'” Trump told reporters as he and first lady Melania Trump hosted the White House Easter Egg Roll. “They don’t want to cry as the expression goes ‘uncle,’ but they will. And if they don’t, they’ll have no bridges. They’ll have no power plants. They’ll have no anything.”
He added another ominous warning, “I won’t go further because there are other things that are worse than those two.”
Meanwhile, Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
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