Iran's chief negotiator in talks with the US has said that Americans have "said NO TO WAR", after President Donald Trump's Republican Party suffered a stunning defeat in the midterm elections. "We endorse this message," parliament speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X. "If the US [government] betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare," he warned.
Trump acknowledged on Tuesday that the poor results for Republican congressional candidates were partly due to the war and the related surge in petrol prices. But he insisted that he did not regret launching a joint attack with Israel on Iran in February. He told the BBC's US partner, CBS News, that the conflict would end "when I say it ends".
In recent weeks, the president has warned that the US and Israel could return to all-out war after the midterms if a deal to end the conflict cannot be reached with Iran. Also on Wednesday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said four oil tankers caught fire after hitting naval sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC said two of the vessels were still burning, and two additional tankers had been intercepted, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
It said they were trying to travel through a prohibited southern route in the Strait of Hormuz. The BBC has not independently verified the IRGC's claims. The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre said a tanker was struck by two unknown projectiles about 14 nautical miles (26km) north-east of Limah, in Oman's Musandam peninsula, on Tuesday evening.
No casualties were reported, it added. On Monday, an Indian crew member of a dhow - a wooden sailing boat - was killed in an attack north-east of Limah. Thirteen other crew members were rescued by Omani authorities.
The IRCG also reported on Wednesday that its forces had shot down another US MQ-9 drone over the Strait of Hormuz. It made a similar claim on Monday night, when US officials said the US military had carried out limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island in response to the IRGC firing on a US aircraft. In an interview with the Financial Times ahead of the midterms, Trump suggested he was happy with the state of the conflict, and that he did not consider them to be "really in a war".
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