Trump moves deadline for striking Iran fuel sites
US President Donald Trump has pushed back his deadline for strikes on Iran’s energy assets, saying talks on ending the war were “going very well” as Israel announced fresh strikes on Tehran early Friday.
Last Saturday, Trump had initially given Iran 48 hours to open the strategic Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers, threatening to destroy its power plants, but he has now extended the deadline twice.
“As per Iranian Government request… I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time,” he posted on Thursday.
Around a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas passes through the Strait of Hormuz in peacetime.
Trump had earlier denied that he was desperate for a deal to end the war, despite the Islamic republic’s cool response to an American peace plan.
“Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
15-point ‘action list’
The president’s envoy Steve Witkoff told a cabinet meeting earlier of “strong signs” that Tehran was ready to negotiate, confirming publicly for the first time that Washington had passed a 15-point “action list” to Tehran through Pakistani officials.
“We will see where things lead, and if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for them, other than more death and destruction,” Witkoff said.
At the meeting, Trump said Iran had allowed 10 oil tankers passage through the Strait of Hormuz to show it was serious about talks.
The Iranian news agency Tasnim said Tehran had replied to Washington’s 15 points and was “awaiting the other side’s response.”
The Tasnim report, citing an unnamed official, said Tehran’s reply called for war reparations and respect for Iran’s “sovereignty” over the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran also called for an end to US and Israeli attacks on Iran as well as on groups in the region aligned with it, the report said — a reference to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, among others.
More airstrikes
Early on Friday, Israel’s military said it carried out “a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime in the heart of Tehran.”
In Lebanon, state media reported an airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, as AFP correspondents heard several explosions from the Hezbollah stronghold.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards meanwhile claimed a series of missile and drone attacks on Thursday, targeting sites in Israel as well as military facilities in the Gulf used by US forces.
The World Bank, in its first statement on the crisis, said it was “ready to respond at scale.”
“The longer this lasts, and the more damage there is to critical infrastructure, the more challenging this will be,” it said.
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