April 1 (Reuters) - Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a letter addressed to the American people that his country harbors no enmity towards ordinary Americans, Press TV reported on Wednesday.
He said in his letter that portraying Iran as a threat was "neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts."
(Reporting by Menna Alaa El-Din; Editing by Chris Reese)
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to pull the United States out of NATO due to its European members' refusal to send ships to unblock the Strait of Hormuz near Iran, as he intensified his denunciations of the military alliance.
Experts say it is not clear whether Trump could act unilaterally to leave the 77-year-old trans-Atlantic coalition, even though he frequently makes major decisions without congressional approval, some of which are held up by U.S. courts.
Here's a look at the issue:
Thousands of Iranians gathered Wednesday in Tehran for the funeral of the Revolutionary Guards' naval commander, killed in an Israeli strike, with mourners vowing to fight to the end despite tough talk from Washington.
The procession took place on the 47th anniversary of the Islamic republic, proclaimed on April 1, 1979, after the revolution that overthrew the last shah and ended more than 2,500 years of monarchy.
But this year, the public holiday carried particular weight, as Tehran fights for survival under relentless US-Israeli bombardment since February 28.
PARIS, April 1 (Reuters) - China will at one point have to engage more directly on how to restore oil traffic flows in the Strait of Hormuz because the number of vessels it has going through is probably insufficient, France's navy chief said on Wednesday.
By Andrea Shalal and Ruchika Khanna
April 1 (Reuters) - The heads of the International Energy Agency, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank on Wednesday said they will form a coordination group to maximize their response to the significant economic and energy impacts of the war in the Middle East.
In a joint statement, the three global bodies noted that the war had caused major disruptions in the region and triggered one of the largest supply shortages in global energy market history.
By Samia Nakhoul
DUBAI, April 1 (Reuters) - If President Donald Trump ends the war with Iran without a deal, he risks leaving Tehran with a stranglehold over Middle East energy supplies and Gulf Arab oil and gas producers grappling with the fallout of a conflict they did not start or shape.
Instead of crushing Iran's theocratic rulers, it could leave them stronger, emboldened by surviving weeks of U.S.-Israeli attacks, firing on Arab Gulf states and rattling global energy markets by effectively shutting the Strait of Hormuz.
By Nazih Osseiran and Maya Gebeily
April 1 (Reuters) - Thousands of Christians still living in a cluster of towns along Lebanon's southern border say they are trapped and terrified after an Israeli military advance nearby triggered the withdrawal of Lebanese troops from the area.
Residents of Rmeich, Ain Ebel and Debel had stayed in place despite Israel's mass evacuation orders for southern Lebanon, hoping their hometowns would be spared despite the expanding conflict between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President JD Vance communicated with intermediaries from Pakistan about the Iran conflict as recently as Tuesday, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters, a sign of his expanding role in efforts to broker an end to the conflict.
At President Donald Trump's direction, Vance signaled privately that Trump was open to a ceasefire as long as certain U.S. demands were met, including reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the source told Reuters on Wednesday.
President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that the United States was nearing victory in Iran as he laid out his case more than a month into a war that has sent his approval rating tumbling.
In an evening speech from the White House, Trump broke little new ground on how the war would end and vowed two to three weeks further of "extremely hard" strikes against Iran.
"We are going to finish the job, and we're going to finish it very fast. We're getting very close," he said in remarks that largely rehashed his daily streams of social-media postings and rapid media interviews.
April 1 (Reuters) - Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson said U.S. President Donald Trump's statement on Iran requesting a ceasefire was false and baseless, Iranian state TV reported on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah)
