U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference, March 9, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. AP-Yonhap
TEHRAN — U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that US military operations in Iran would be ending soon, reassuring markets that have been thrust into chaos by a war that is still reverberating across the Middle East.
The war had sent stock markets slumping and oil prices soaring again on Monday as Tehran, under new leader Mojtaba Khamenei, fired a fresh barrage of missiles at its Gulf neighbors and signaled that the strategic Strait of Hormuz would likely remain closed.
But Wall Street then climbed into positive territory with Trump's repeated signals of a short-term conflict, despite the lack of details and amid threats that the United States could step up a war campaign that has hit more than 5,000 targets so far, according to the US military.
"It's going to be ended soon, and if it starts up again they'll be hit even harder," Trump told a news conference in Florida, after telling an audience of lawmakers that the campaign would be a "short-term excursion."
Trump's remarks came on the first day in power for the 56-year-old son of slain leader Ali Khamenei, with Iranian forces launching a fresh wave of missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Israel.
Another missile was also fired at NATO member Turkey -- the second such incident in five days -- with the alliance's air defenses intercepting it before it could reach its target.
With the Strait of Hormuz blocked to nearly all oil tankers, the price of benchmark crude oil contracts rocketed past $100 a barrel on Monday - their highest levels since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 - before pulling back.
French President Emmanuel Macron said his country and its allies were working on a "purely defensive" mission to reopen the strait, through which nearly 20 percent of the world's crude oil usually transits.
The mission would aim to escort ships "after the end of the hottest phase of the conflict," but experts say it would mean putting naval vessels at risk of fire from the nearby Iranian coast.
Source: Korea Times News
