{"id":587789,"date":"2026-08-17T21:44:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T21:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/587789\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T21:44:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T21:44:30","slug":"donald-trump-confirms-us-has-backchannel-to-irgc-threatens-to-bomb-oman-over-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/587789\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump confirms US has backchannel to IRGC, threatens to bomb Oman over Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump<\/a> confirmed to FOX News on Monday that there is a backchannel with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials, as the 60-day period in the Memorandum of Understanding expired.<\/p>\n

On Sunday,\u00a0Axios\u00a0reported that Kurdistan Regional Government President Nechirvan Barzani had been tapped as the secret backchannel, citing three sources with direct knowledge of the talks.<\/p>\n

Notably, Barzani lived in Iran during the Iraq-Iran War in the 1980s, studied at the University of Tehran<\/a>, speaks fluent Farsi, and has personal relationships with several members of the IRGC.<\/p>\n

However, IRGC Spokesperson Brig.-Gen Hossein Mohebbi denied Trump’s backchannel claims during an interview with IRGC-affiliated outlet Tasnim News Agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no dialogue taking place between IRGC officials and the Americans,\u201d Mohebbi said, describing Trump\u2019s claim as \u201cmerely fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USUS soldier after boarding an Iranian ship in the Strait of Hormuz, July 17, 2026. (credit: Screenshot\/X\/@PeteHegseth)<\/p>\n

Mohebbi went on to say the lack of diplomatic talks is due to “Washington\u2019s broken promises” and its repeated “violations of agreements.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sooner and faster the Americans accept their failure and make decisions accordingly, the more they can save their country from greater and heavier losses,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

Trump added that Iran should raise “the white flag of surrender,” and that he has “no time schedule” and is in “no hurry” to make a deal. The Iranians are “good poker players, but they’re dying,” said Trump.<\/p>\n

He also warned that \u201cif Oman gets in the way [of US control in the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>], we\u2019ll bomb the s*** out of them.”<\/p>\n

Regarding US munitions used against Iran, Trump said that what has been used so far against Iran “is peanuts.”<\/p>\n

Trump added that while the US has many mid-level weapons, many of the more advanced weapons, including air-defense systems, were “given away” to Ukraine by former US president Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

In a subsequent post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump reiterated, \u201cThe number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following Trump’s comments to Fox News, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran will escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region if diplomacy with the US fails, pointing to an Iranian policy shift relying on offense rather than defense.<\/p>\n

Trump: Hamas agreed to give up its weapons<\/p>\n

Trump also said that the US has a “different channel with Hamas” and has been discussing demilitarizing the Gaza Strip when he spoke with FOX News.<\/p>\n

Further, Trump said that Israel should not be striking in Gaza since Hamas has agreed to “ultimately giving up their guns.”<\/p>\n

Trump’s comments come as Jared Kushner, Board of Peace head Nikolay Mladenov, and Tony Blair met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials on Monday to apply pressure on Israel to move forward<\/a> with the next stage of the US plan for Gaza.<\/p>\n

When asked about Israel’s upcoming elections in October, Trump told FOX that while he thinks “it’s more appropriate” for him to stay out of the elections, he “may endorse somebody.”<\/p>\n

Trump says Iran won’t make the deal he thinks is needed, will not extend MoU<\/p>\n

Later on Monday, Trump told reporters that Iran would not make the type of deal with the US that he thought was necessary.<\/p>\n

The US is not seeking an extension of the memorandum of understanding with Iran, the president added.<\/p>\n

Hours before, Trump told a Fox News reporter during a phone interview that Iran “should put up the white flag of surrender.”<\/p>\n

The dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up fuel prices and put pressure on Trump to end a war that is unpopular at home ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide \u200ccontrol of the US Congress.<\/p>\n

Trump told Fox News that the midterms were not impacting his strategy on Iran.<\/p>\n

“Midterms have nothing to do with my thinking,” he said.<\/p>\n

Amichai Stein, Idan Kweller, Jerusalem Post Staff, and Reuters contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump confirmed to FOX News on Monday that there is a backchannel with Iran’s Islamic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,69,51,42,149244,87,53065,43,2595,114994,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-587789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hamas","tag-headlines","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-irgc","tag-news","tag-oman","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}