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United States Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has said the military blockade of Iran\u2019s ports will continue \u201cas long as it takes\u201d, saying Washington remained \u201clocked and loaded\u201d to attack Iran\u2019s energy facilities.<\/p>\n
Hegseth spoke on Thursday as a tenuous pause in fighting agreed to last week has continued. On Monday, President Donald Trump had announced the military would blockade Iran\u2019s ports in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf after US-Iran talks in Pakistan failed to reach a breakthrough.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The defence secretary struck an aggressive tone as he maintained the US was monitoring Iran\u2019s military movements during the pause in fighting, which currently is meant to extend through early next week.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are reloading with more power than ever before \u2026 even more importantly, better intelligence than ever before,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you expose yourself with your movement to our watchful eye, we are locked and loaded on your critical dual-use infrastructure, on your remaining power generation and on your energy industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Still, the Pentagon chief said the US would prefer to resolve the conflict, which began with US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, through diplomacy.<\/p>\n \u201cYou, Iran, can choose a prosperous future, a golden bridge, and we hope that you do for the people of Iran,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the meantime and for as long as it takes, we will maintain this blockade, successful blockade, but if Iran chooses poorly, then they will have a blockade and bombs dropping on infrastructure, power and energy.\u201d<\/p>\n On Wednesday, a Pakistani delegation arrived in Tehran to coordinate a new round of talks. While both sides have indicated they remained open to further negotiations, Major-General Ali Abdollahi, the commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), warned that the US blockade could end the current pause in fighting.<\/p>\n White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, meanwhile, indicated the US maintained a positive outlook on future talks.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this moment, we remain very much engaged in these negotiations, in these talks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But reporting from Tehran on Thursday, Al Jazeera\u2019s Ali Hashem says deep-seated distrust remains. The US under Trump twice attacked Iran amid ongoing indirect talks over Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, a fact that has cast a long shadow over the most recent bout of diplomacy.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly, there have been several messages conveyed to the Iranians. But rather than consolidating a feeling of trust and optimism, it seems that it\u2019s already shaken,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw a platform closely associated with the foreign ministry tweeting today, quoting a source saying that whatever is being demonstrated or said in the media regarding the optimism is just hype, and this is used for PR and it\u2019s for President Trump to use in the markets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the Iranian delegation in the talks with Iran, told his Lebanese counterpart on Thursday that a ceasefire in Israel\u2019s invasion and ongoing bombardment of Lebanon is \u201cas important\u201d as the pause in fighting in Iran.<\/p>\n Getting Israel to agree to a Lebanon ceasefire has emerged as one of the main sticking points in talks, which also include control of the Strait of Hormuz and the future of Iran\u2019s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n Speaking during the news conference on Thursday, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said so far, 13 ships leaving Iranian ports have turned around in response to US military warnings.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you do not comply with this blockade, we will use force,\u201d Caine said.<\/p>\n Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), meanwhile, said the US is using the war to rearm and reposition its forces.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re rearming, we\u2019re retooling, and we\u2019re adjusting our tactics, techniques and procedures. There\u2019s no military in the world that adjusts like we do, and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re doing right now during the ceasefire,\u201d said.<\/p>\n During questions with reporters, Hegseth also shot down reports that China was planning to send weapons to Iran amid the pause in fighting. Hegseth said Washington had received assurances from Beijing that this was not the case.<\/p>\n Hegseth also used a large portion of the news conference to attack US media coverage of the war, which is criticising the Trump administration over its shifting objectives and justifications for launching the conflict.<\/p>\n Hegseth called the coverage \u201cincredibly unpatriotic\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n United States Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has said the military blockade of Iran\u2019s ports will continue \u201cas long as it takes\u201d, saying Washington remained \u201clocked and loaded\u201d to attack Iran\u2019s energy facilities. Hegseth spoke on Thursday as a tenuous pause in fighting agreed to last week has continued. On Monday, President Donald Trump had announced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018We will use force\u2019<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"