Reuters reported Friday that President Donald Trump had warned Iran on Thursday via Oman about imminent air and naval strikes in response to Iran’s earlier attack on a U.S. Navy drone, and called on the regime to engage in talks.
The report indicated:
Iranian officials told Reuters on Friday that Tehran had received a message from U.S. President Donald Trump through Oman overnight warning that a U.S. attack on Iran was imminent.
“In his message, Trump said he was against any war with Iran and wanted to talk to Tehran about various issues … he gave a short period of time to get our response but Iran’s immediate response was that it is up to Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei to decide about this issue,” one of the officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The report suggested that Iran was not inclined to talk, though officials left the decision to their “Supreme Leader,” Ali Khamenei.
The U.S. insists that the drone was in international airspace, and that it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile launched from Iranian territory. Trump tweeted Thursday that Iran had made a “very big mistake,” though later added that he believed the attack had been an accident, leaving open the possibility of talks.
The New York Times reported Thursday evening that Trump had ordered retaliatory strikes, then called them off.
Oman was a key intermediary between the U.S. and Iran during the Obama administration, in the run-up to nuclear talks that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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