Trump says has no plans to withdraw US troops from Middle East

US President Donald Trump said any new agreement with Iran would not immediately unfreeze Tehran’s assets, telling NBC News that sanctions relief would come only after Iran changed its behavior.

“That comes after,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News. “Yeah, if they behave, if they do a good job, we start talking.”

Trump said that under a possible deal, US equipment would be used to remove and destroy Iran’s nuclear material or infrastructure, either on-site or off-site.

“If we make a deal that now we’re friendly, we’ll all go together. It’ll be our equipment. We’ll take it out and destroy it, whether it’s on-site or whether we take it off-site,” he said.

Trump warned that if no deal was reached, the United States would act militarily.

“If we don’t make a deal, then we’re going to take them out militarily very harshly,” he said.

US Central Command said on Sunday its forces had redirected 132 commercial vessels and disabled six others while enforcing the US blockade against Iran.

CENTCOM released an image showing an officer aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Michael Murphy, while observing a merchant vessel in the Arabian Sea.

An Iranian lawmaker claimed on Sunday that US military power had been exposed as weak, adding that Washington could not achieve its goals through force.

“With one needle, the balloon of America’s power burst and deflated, and the whole world understood that America cannot do a damn thing militarily,” Mohammadsaleh Jokar told Iran-based website Didban.

He accused the United States of deception, threats and seeking concessions, saying Iran should reach a point where Washington no longer dared to threaten it.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson told CNN that Tehran and Washington were still exchanging messages through Pakistani mediators, but accused the United States of making negotiations difficult with shifting demands.

“The main problem of negotiating with this administration is that you have to face so many changing positions, moving the goal posts, different statements, contradictory remarks by different officials, so it makes the whole process very cumbersome,” Esmaeil Baghaei said.

He said Washington was not offering concessions over Iran’s blocked assets and accused the United States of attacking Iranian commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and on the high seas.

He called the situation “very volatile and very dangerous” and blamed what he described as the United States’ “reckless approach” towards the region and the ceasefire.

The spokesman warned that Iran’s armed forces were ready “to respond to any attacks with all force.”

Iran currently receives an average of $1.5 million to $2 million from each ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz, Mohsen Zanganeh, a member of parliament’s budget and planning committee, told IRGC-linked Fars News on Sunday.

The money is deposited into the treasury under the budget law and spent in designated areas, according to the report.

Some payments were not made in cash and were instead settled through US Tether, a dollar-linked cryptocurrency, or barter, the report said.