President Trump said Monday the U.S. will win the conflict with Iran “one way or another,” vowing success in final-stage negotiations as mourners flooded Tehran streets to memorialize late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mr. Trump said his administration is “doing very well” in negotiations that pivot on ending the war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and preventing the Islamic regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“They want to make a deal so badly, but we’ll see what happens. They have to make the right deal because they cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said in the White House Rose Garden. “We’re gonna win one way or the other. We’ll win the nice way or not the nice way.”
The president is leaving open the door to renewed military operations while Pakistani and Qatari mediators work on a final-stage deal between Washington and Tehran.
Sticking points include the possibility of Iran imposing tolls on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil chokepoint. The U.S. and other global powers say tolls would be unacceptable.
Tehran also said it wants to see an end to Israel’s bombardment of Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
The U.S. said it won key concessions, including an agreement for Iran to accept U.N. inspectors at sensitive nuclear sites and use unfrozen assets to buy American farm products.
Tehran disputed those claims, saying it had not committed to those provisions. It’s also chafed at the idea that it is malnourished from Mr. Trump’s military assault and blockade of Iranian ports.
“Imagine having forty-something million of your own citizens on food stamps and calling another nation hungry. This is not a proclamation. This is a projection. Keep your SNAP advice.” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on social media over the weekend.
Iranian leaders are holding a massive, multi-day funeral for Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of U.S.-Israeli bombing at the end of February.
Khamenei’s flag-draped coffin, and those of his family members who were killed Feb. 28 in an airstrike at the start of the war launched by Israel and the United States, sat aboard a truck decorated to resemble the ornamental grating that surrounds the shrine of an imam.
Helicopter images aired on Iranian state television showed a massive crowd stretching from Tehran’s Azadi, or Freedom, Square for miles down a multi-lane street of the same name. The crowd appeared to be larger than the one that turned out for the 2020 procession for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which drew more than 1 million people.
Authorities offered no immediate crowd count as the truck crept down the street. People alongside the truck and elsewhere on the route carried placards, signs and banners calling for Mr. Trump’s death.
“Today that we are here for the funeral for our leader, it’s a very tough day,” mourner Fatima Hassan said. “We are not here to say goodbye to him. We are here for revenge. And we will take revenge.”
The display of state-organized unity is unfolding as Mr. Trump’s envoys and Iran try to turn a mid-June memorandum of understanding, which paused the fighting, into a permanent agreement.
Mr. Trump said Monday he launched military strikes this year to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, once and for all. The ceasefire eased economic pressure on the president in a midterm election year, with oil prices falling to pre-war levels.
“You want to see a bad stock market? Let them use a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said. I’ll show you a bad stock market, right?”
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
