Top updates: Israel claims it killed Iranian officer ‘responsible’ for blocking Hormuz

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has claimed that the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy Alireza Tangsiri was killed in a strike, The Times of Israel reported.

Katz was quoted as having described Tangsiri as “the person directly responsible for the terror operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic”.

Iran has not yet commented on the claim.

Here are more top updates from the conflict in West Asia:

• US President Donald Trump on Thursday said that the Iranian negotiators “are very different and ‘strange’”. Tehran was “begging” Washington to make a deal, Trump claimed on social media. “...they should be doing [that] since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only ‘looking at our proposal’”, he said.
• “Wrong!” He added. “They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is no turning back, and it won’t be pretty!”
• Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Thursday that “indirect talks” are taking place between the United States and Iran, and that the messages were being relayed by Islamabad. “Brotherly countries of Turkiye and Egypt, among others, are also extending their support to this initiative,” Dar said on social media.
• Dar’s comment came amid speculation about the nature...

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