A United States official has told Al Jazeera that despite two days of launching attacks on Iran this week, Washington remains committed to negotiations with Tehran and that technical talks for a lasting peace deal will continue.From Tuesday night to Thursday this week, the US and Iran traded attacks in a major escalation of hostilities since a memorandum of understanding (MoU), which triggered a 60-day negotiation period, was signed on June 17.The US initially launched attacks on 85 targets in Iran on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning after commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz were attacked by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), apparently for not sticking to a route through the strait approved by Iran.Iran retaliated with attacks on US military assets and infrastructure in Gulf states on Wednesday, triggering more US attacks on 90 Iranian targets on Wednesday night and again on Thursday on Iran’s southern coastal and eastern provinces – including on civilian infrastructure, Iran claimed – further eroding the three-week-old ceasefire pact. (Al Jazeera)On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump told reporters at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkiye, that he thought the MoU was “over”, triggering fears the ceasefire was off. However, he added that while he would allow peace talks to continue for now, he believed they were a “waste of time”. In an angry tirade, he referred to the Iranian leadership as “scum”.Trump appeared to backtrack from this stance somewhat on Thursday, when he told journalists on board the presidential plane, Air Force One, that returning to a full-scale war was not the aim. While it remained on the table, he said, Tehran “wants to make a deal”. Advertisement However, early Friday, Iranian media r …
