‘Stone Age’ to ‘Golden Age’: How the final hours before the truce unfolded
Al Jazeera
Frantic diplomacy collides with ‘genocidal’ threats in lead-up to announcement of two-week ceasefire between US, Iran.
In the final hours before a United States-Iran ceasefire was reached early on Wednesday in the Middle East, the war that had shaken the world for nearly six weeks had threatened to explode to even more prolonged and devastating levels.
US President Donald Trump issued increasingly apocalyptic warnings, including threats deemed genocidal, that he would obliterate Iran’s infrastructure and a “whole civilisation” would die if his deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8pm Washington, DC, time on Tuesday (midnight GMT) was not heeded by Tehran.
A day earlier, Trump had also threatened to bomb Iran back to the “Stone Ages”.
World leaders expressed horror over his language, global markets tanked and some started pondering whether the Trump White House was perhaps even contemplating the use of nuclear weapons.
Eventually, over the course of a tense Tuesday, last‑minute diplomacy mediated by Pakistan culminated in a two‑week ceasefire less than 90 minutes before Trump’s self‑imposed deadline to carry out large-scale, devastating attacks on Iran. Israel also agreed to halt its attacks but said Lebanon was not included in the deal.
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Frantic diplomacy collides with ‘genocidal’ threats in lead-up to announcement of two-week ceasefire between US, Iran.
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