President Trump said on Wednesday that he was told by “very important sources on the other side” that the “killing in Iran is stopping,” comments that come amid signs of a potential US attack on the Islamic Republic.
“We have been told that the killing in Iran is stopping, it has stopped, it’s stopping,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “And there’s no plan for executions or an execution or executions. So, I’ve been told that on good authority. We’ll find out about it.”
The president added that there were “supposed to be a lot of executions today, but that the executions won’t take place.” He suggested that Iran told the US that its security personnel were coming under armed attack.
“They said people were shooting at them with guns, and they were shooting back, and you know it’s one of those things, but uh, they told me that there’ll be no executions, and so I hope that’s true,” he told reporters. When asked if that meant military action was off the table, Trump replied, “We’re going to watch it and see what the process is.”
The comments could be a sign that Trump is backing down from his threat to bomb Iran, or the president could be engaging in deception to keep Iranian officials off guard, as he did before the start of the 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran back in June.
Hours before the Israeli attack on Iran started, Trump put out a post on Truth Social where he said he was committed to a “diplomatic resolution” with Tehran. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Israeli jets were getting in the air to bomb Iran when he published the post.
