Tehran, Iran. Iran will halt its attacks if the United States maintains its latest pause in air strikes, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday, after President Donald Trump suspended a two-week bombing campaign.
The official said Iran’s approach remained “attack for attack” and warned that Tehran was prepared to respond broadly if the United States launched further attacks.
Pause in air strikes
After 13 nights of intensifying US air strikes on Iran, the Pentagon suspended the campaign late on Friday. No US attacks were reported on Saturday or Sunday.
Iran had followed nightly US strikes with attacks on neighbouring countries hosting US bases, but had also held fire for two days.
US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News on Sunday that Trump had paused the attacks to allow more time for diplomacy.
“He’s giving talks some space, he’s giving it a little bit of room,” Waltz said, without providing further details.
Iranian response
The senior Iranian source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Iran’s position remains ‘attack for attack’: if the attacks stop, Iran will also halt its operations. That message has already been conveyed to the United States.”
The source added that Iran was prepared to mount a broad response should the United States launch another attack.
A senior Trump administration official said on Saturday that the president had consistently preferred diplomacy, but had demonstrated what would happen if Iran did not engage seriously in talks.
Scepticism over diplomacy
The Iranian source said Tehran had little expectation that Trump’s decision to pause strikes represented a major change in the US negotiating position.
“There is more scepticism than optimism about the halt in attacks,” the source said. “The prevailing view is that the pause is tactical rather than genuine. Iran has accumulated enough bitter experience with what it sees as US deception.”