Foreign Minister Penny Wong has responded to Donald Trump’s threats to “completely obliterate” Iranian energy assets, including the major oil hub Kharg Island, calling instead for talks to resolve the conflict.
Trump suggested the US could destroy the energy assets if a ceasefire agreement wasn’t reached soon and the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t reopened, after claiming in the Financial Times that the US military had “another couple of thousand targets to go” and that “a deal could be made fairly quickly”.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One.AP
Wong found Trump had already achieved “a lot of military objectives” against Iran, and called for diplomacy to “lead to de-escalation and the resolution of this conflict”.
“I can’t speak for the president, but I certainly know that he has made many comments and as have other US officials about the imperfect oil and energy markets. I mean, no one is immune. This is the largest shock on global energy markets since the 1970s,” Wong told ABC’s News Breakfast.
“This is an unpredictable conflict. War is unpredictable. The question is, how does the US navigate a landing point out of this conflict that is acceptable to it and to the Iranians? And I think that is what the US is seeking to do.”
Trump posted on Truth Social late last night that the US was in “serious discussions with a new, and more reasonable, regime to end our military operations in Iran”.