Iran says it will stop attacks as long as the United States does the same, after Washington paused its bombing campaign for a second consecutive day.
Dubai/Washington – Reuters: Iran has said it will halt its own attacks on US interests as long as Washington does the same, a senior Iranian official told Reuters, as a fragile pause in strikes between the two countries entered a second day.
The lull followed 13 consecutive nights of intensifying US airstrikes on Iranian territory. The Pentagon suspended the campaign late on Friday, and no American strikes were reported over the following two days. Iran, which had been retaliating nightly against countries hosting US bases in the region, has likewise held its fire.
The Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tehran’s approach remained one of matching any halt in US action, adding that this position had already been communicated to Washington.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told American television networks that President Donald Trump had decided to pause strikes to give diplomatic efforts more room to proceed. Waltz said Trump was “giving talks some space” and “a little bit of room.”
According to a US official cited by Reuters, American military planners had largely exhausted the pre-selected list of targets built up over two weeks of strikes meant to deter Iranian threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is reported to have privately cautioned Trump that resuming large-scale strikes could further deplete US munitions stocks, including air-defence interceptors deployed across the Middle East.
The Iranian source expressed doubt that the pause reflected any real change in the US position, saying Tehran viewed it as tactical rather than a genuine shift, citing what it called past instances of American deception during the conflict.
The renewed US bombing campaign of the past two weeks had effectively unravelled an interim agreement reached last month aimed at ending the war. Iran, for its part, had responded to US strikes by hitting desalination plants in nearby Gulf Arab states, while maintaining that it intends to retain control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant share of global oil once flowed before the conflict began.
Accounts of the internal US deliberations that led to the pause vary, with some reports pointing to reservations from Vice President JD Vance and advice from the top US commander in the Middle East, Admiral Brad Cooper, that the bombing campaign had reached the limits of its usefulness.
For ordinary Iranians, the uncertainty has become part of daily life. Residents in Tehran described a sense of living in limbo, uncertain whether the current calm will hold or give way to renewed strikes in the days ahead.
