Trump says US may have to blow up Iran's Pickaxe Mountain

French President Emmanuel Macron said regime change in Iran could not be achieved through bombing, in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday.

“Having a regime change by bombing a country is not something I think [is] feasible … It doesn’t work,” Macron said.

On Monday, Macron said in a post on X that he met US President Donald Trump in New York and that they agreed to work together to ease pressure on energy markets by protecting critical infrastructure in the Middle East and freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.

He added that France and the US would also coordinate efforts to secure a moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure and Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

The sound of an explosion was heard near Iran’s Qeshm Island on Tuesday, state news agency IRNA reported.

The chances of reaching an agreement between Iran and the US remain limited, with major differences and obstacles persisting, Al Arabiya reported Tuesday, citing a US source who attended a meeting with the Iranian delegation.

The source also said Washington rejected Tehran’s request to lift the blockade.

The IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency reported Tuesday that six officials make up Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s political and protocol team in New York, including senior presidential and Foreign Ministry officials.

The group includes presidential chief of staff Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei and Seyed Mohammad Mousavi, who oversees protocol at the presidential office, as well as Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei and Foreign Media Director General Alireza Miryousefi, Fars reported.

The trip comes after Washington imposed restrictions barring Iranian officials attending the UN General Assembly from buying luxury goods or joining wholesale clubs. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said last week that the US would not allow Iranian officials to use their stay in New York for luxury shopping.

US authorities also refused visas for the media team accompanying Pezeshkian, according to his office.

A regional spokeswoman for the US State Department said that talks with Iran are “highly sensitive” at the moment, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday.

Iraq is set to impose a ban on Iranian flights in Baghdad shortly, Al Hadath reported Tuesday in a post on X.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Tuesday that European countries hosting US military bases could bear international responsibility if they assist in preparing or carrying out attacks on Iran.

Araghchi told his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani during a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that rising fuel and commodity prices in global markets were a direct result of the US-Israeli war with Iran, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The Iranian foreign minister warned of the dangerous consequences that the normalization of law-breaking and aggressive US unilateralism poses to the rule of law,” according to the statement.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Iran must act “fast” as Washington increases financial pressure, warning the country could lose its chance to “survive as a nation” and saying the US could strike Pickaxe Mountain if activity resumes there.

“We’re completely isolating Iran financially and we’re just putting the pressure on because hopefully they’ll do the right thing fast before it’s too late,” Trump said during a meeting with Persian Gulf Arab and regional leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

“There’s going to be a time when it’s too late and we won’t have a chance of letting them survive as a nation. I would like to see that,” he added.

Trump also referred to Pickaxe Mountain, near Natanz, saying, “We may have to blow up another one. Pickax Mountain... if we do [see activity], we’ll blow it up immediately.”

Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff and the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Iran’s top joint operational command, said Tuesday that US President Donald Trump’s remarks on Iran at the UN General Assembly were “merely a tool for domestic propaganda.”

“The US president’s rhetoric does not change the calculations of power and will never compensate for this country’s diminished position in the emerging world order or America’s humiliating defeats in the war against Iran and the resistance front,” they said in a statement carried by state media.

They added that Iran’s armed forces remained fully prepared to deliver “more severe, crushing and unpredictable” strikes against the United States and Israel in response to further attacks, according to the statement.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards do not reject diplomacy but see negotiations as another means of imposing Tehran’s conditions on its adversaries, IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi told Al Araby TV on Tuesday.

“We do not reject diplomacy under any circumstances,” Mohebbi said. “Within this diplomacy, it is we who impose our conditions and demands on the enemy.”