Iran tells UN it will respond to any US attack as Trump weighs military options

Iran’s Ambassador to the UN, Ami-Saeid Irvani, has sent a letter to Secretary General Antonio Guterres warning that Iran will retaliate in case of any US attack on the country.

Irvani said that Tehran "neither seeks tension nor war and will not initiate any war", but in the event of an attack it would consider "all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force" in the region as "legitimate targets in the context of Iran’s defensive response".

Irvani further asserted that threats by US President Donald Trump about the potential use of the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean and the Fairford base in the United Kingdom "cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric", calling them violations of the UN Charter.

Meanwhile, Trump appears to be weighing "an initial limited military strike" on Iran as an attempt to pressure Tehran into accepting his demands for a nuclear deal.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the Trump administration is looking into carrying out an offensive that falls short of a full-scale attack "within days", targeting "a few military or government sites".

If Iran were to refuse to comply with Trump’s terms for Tehran to end its nuclear enrichment programme, Washington would subsequently target regime facilities with the potential aim of toppling the Iranian government, according to WSJ.

On Thursday, Trump said he would decide his next move vis-à-vis Iran "over the next 10 days".

Asked to elaborate further by reporters on board Air Force One, the US President commented, "We’re going to make a deal or get a deal one way or the other", changing his timeline for possible US strikes to within a maximum period of two weeks.

Analysts fear a US attack, including a so-called limited pre-emptive strike, would prompt Iranian officials to withdraw from the fragile negotiations.

Trump had previously said the talks with Tehran were "good" but that reaching a full agreement with Tehran was a historic "difficult task".

Reports suggest Trump has been informed that Iran could agree to some concessions around its nuclear programme if the talks focused solely on nuclear issues, without any discussion of Tehran's ballistic missile programme and its support for proxy groups in the region.

Washington has, however, demanded that Iran's ballistic missiles be included in the talks.

In the meantime, the US military buildup continues in the Middle East.

Flight-tracking data over the past few days has shown multiple F-35 and F-22 fighter jets moving towards Iran in what analysts are describing as the biggest US military buildup in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

A second aircraft carrier is likewise heading to the Middle East, while critical air defence systems have been deployed in recent weeks.