Trump Cancels Strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island After Threatening to Seize It

Hours after threatening to hit Iran “very hard tonight,” United States President Donald Trump called off the planned attack, signaling instead that a possible breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations had been reached.

“Hours after threatening to hit Iran “very hard tonight”, United States President Donald Trump has called off his planned attack, signalling instead that a possible breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations had been reached”

Al Jazeera

In the same Truth Social post, Trump said he had “cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” while adding that the US naval blockade of Iranian ports “will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized.”

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran remains firm on its “red lines,” according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Al Jazeera also said Iran’s Foreign Ministry had said the latest round of US strikes rendered the April 8 ceasefire deal “practically meaningless,” and that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned on X that “wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse.”

After Trump threatened to seize Kharg Island, Ibrahim Azizi, head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Iranian parliament, warned that Iran will deliver a “decisive, crushing, painful, and remorse-inducing response” if the United States attacks the island.

Azizi told the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri that Iran, with all its territory including Kharg Island, is in a state of full readiness, adding, “The level of readiness of our armed forces there is extremely high.”

Anadolu Ajansı

CNN Arabic said Trump’s threat came before he announced he had canceled strikes planned for Thursday evening, after agreeing on the final points of the deal with Iran.

AP News framed the stakes of any attack on Kharg Island by noting that strikes on oil infrastructure on Kharg—or a ground invasion—would “severely curb Iran’s oil exports,” and could provoke “even heavier retaliatory attacks on Gulf Arab infrastructure.”

AP News described Kharg Island as a terminal through which Iran exports most of its oil and said it has emerged as a focus of the war launched in late February by the United States and Israel.

“Iran’s Kharg Island is key to its oil exports”

AP News

The article said the island is on the other side of the Persian Gulf from U.S. bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and that a U.S. occupation would put American troops “just 33 kilometers (21 miles) off Iran’s coast.”

BBC reported that Trump escalated rhetoric in a Truth Social post on Thursday morning by saying the US would be “taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets,” before later telling Fox News that his “preference” had always been “to take Kharg Island.”

BBC also quoted Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warning that his country’s forces were “waiting for American soldiers” and would “rain fire” on any US troops attempting to enter Iranian territory, while also noting that the island is “a major oil terminal off the coast of Iran.”