Tehran warns it will strike US bases in region if Trump takes military action against Iran

Tehran will strike US bases in the region if Washington follows through on its warning of military consequences for Iran in the absence of a new nuclear deal, the speaker of the Iranian parliament says.

US President Donald Trump said earlier this month that he had sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warning that “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal.”

“If the Americans attack the sanctity of Iran, the entire region will blow up like a spark in an ammunition dump,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Qalibaf says.

“Their bases and those of their allies will not be safe,” Qalibaf says in a live speech at the annual Al-Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, that marks the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

Khamenei called Trump’s message deceptive, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday that talks would be impossible unless Washington changed its “maximum pressure” policy. Iran had thoroughly examined Trump’s letter and had sent “an appropriate response” through Oman, Araqchi said.

Earlier today, Araqchi was reported by state media as saying that while Trump’s letter contained threats, it also left the door open to diplomacy. He did not elaborate.

Western powers accuse Iran of having a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its program is wholly for civilian energy purposes, although a UN nuclear watchdog report last month asserted that it is the only non-nuclear weapon state to produce such high quantities of nuclear materials.