President Trump announced he was giving Iran “the week off,” as the Islamic Republic buries its slain supreme leader in a dayslong procession that is expected to turn out as many as 10 million to 15 million.
“We knocked the hell out of Iran and they’re dying to settle,” Trump said during a speech at Mount Rushmore Friday night on the eve of America’s 250th anniversary. “They want to settle so badly.”
“We gave them a week off for a funeral, isn’t that nice,” he added.
Negotiations between the two countries are now set to resume in Pakistan on July 11, sources told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news network Saturday.
They’re expected to focus on Iran’s nuclear program, as well as sanctions on Tehran and Iran’s billions in frozen assets abroad.
Iran will decide who it’s sending to represent the regime at the talks after the end of Ali Khamenei’s state funeral, according to the outlet.
The US and Iran agreed to stop bombing each other, following days of strikes and counterstrikes since an Iranian projectile hit a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz on June 25, despite an interim peace deal signed on June 17.
The Pakistani-mediated memorandum of understanding was meant to stop the fighting and reopen the vital oil shipping lane as additional talks hoped to settle more complex issues including Iran’s nuclear program.
But only one round of direct talks, led by Vice President JD Vance in Switzerland, took place before the fighting resumed and intensified.
Iran launched missiles and drones at US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain just last weekend, as Trump threatened “there may come a point when … we will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” and added, “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist.”
The funeral ceremonies for the late Khamenei, which got underway Friday in Tehran with a wake and will go on until a burial July 9 in Khamenei’s hometown of Mashhad, are expected to bring the largest crowds since Iranians took to the streets in late December and January to call for regime change and protest deteriorating living conditions.
Khamenei’s body has yet to be buried even though he was killed more than four months ago, on Feb. 28, during massive Israeli and US airstrikes on Tehran compound that launched the war in Iran.
Iranians feared holding his funeral earlier posed a security threat for remaining top-tier regime officials.
Khamenei’s son, the newly anointed and probably gay Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who has not been seen since the strikes that killed his father and badly disfigured him — bailed over fears he could be targeted in an Israeli attempt, The New York Times reported.
With Post Wires
