The US President Donald Trump says Israel will not strike Iran’s gas plant again.
This was after he threatened to “massively blow up” a vast Iranian gas field unless Tehran stops striking Qatari energy facilities, which sustained extensive damage Thursday.
Crude oil prices surged five per cent as the latest strikes fed fears that the nearly three-week-old Middle East war could inflict lasting damage on global energy supplies.
Tehran has carried out a series of attacks on Gulf energy sites, including on Qatar’s huge Ras Laffan LNG facility, in retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gas field — part of the world’s largest natural gas reservoir.
Trump called for a social media post to halt strikes on both Iranian and Qatari energy sites.
Washington “knew nothing” of Israel’s earlier attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field, he said, vowing that “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL” on the site if Tehran stops attacking Qatar.
But if Iran did not comply, the United States would “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field”, Trump warned.
READ ALSO: Trump Threatens To Destroy Iran’s Largest Gas Field
However, in what appears to be a U-turn, Trump, who had said an angry Israel had “violently lashed out” and attacked Iran’s major gas field, a significant escalation in the U.S-Israel war, later said Israel would not make further such attacks unless Iran retaliated.
Wednesday’s attack on the huge South Pars gas field drove oil prices higher and prompted a threat by Iran to attack oil and gas targets across the Gulf, while it fired missiles at Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Trump said the United States did not have advance knowledge of Israel’s attack and that Qatar had not been involved. The Wall Street Journal, however, reported that Trump had approved of Israel’s plan to attack Iran’s natural gas field.
“Israel, out of anger for what has taken place in the Middle East, has violently lashed out at a major facility known as South Pars Gas Field in Iran,” Trump posted on X on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, Iran did not know this, or any of the pertinent facts pertaining to the South Pars attack, and unjustifiably and unfairly attacked a portion of Qatar’s LNG Gas facility.
“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar.
“In which instance the United States of America, with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before”, he said.
