US President Donald Trump said he was not at all concerned about potential war crimes, threatening to destroy Iran's bridges and power plants if Tehran does not open the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.
„I'm not concerned. Do you know what a war crime is? "To have nuclear weapons," the US president said (quoted by the Guardian).
In a speech at the White House, Trump declined to say whether civilian targets would be off-limits.
On Monday, Iran rejected a proposal for a 45-day ceasefire and said it wanted a permanent end to the conflict.
"We accept the end of the war only with guarantees that we will not be attacked again," Mojtaba Ferdoussi Pour, the head of Iran's diplomatic mission in Cairo, told the Associated Press.
Trump's threat to blow up all bridges and power plants in Iran, according to some military law experts, could constitute a war crime, the AP reported. The outcome of the case, however, may depend on whether the power plants were legitimate military targets, whether the attacks were proportionate to Iran's actions and whether civilian casualties were minimized.
Iranian embassies in various countries have criticized US President Donald Trump for his foul language and aggressive statements.
Diplomats in Austria have called the Republican a “caveman“.
“When you listen to him, close your eyes and see a Stone Age caveman in zebra skin, brandishing a club and accepting savagery as part of everyday life,“ the embassy said in a statement on the social media platform X.
The embassy in Helsinki compared Trump to a child and said he demonstrated “a lack of knowledge of the rules of etiquette and morality in social media“.
“Open the damn strait, you crazy bastards, or you will live in hell“, the US president's message said.
“The tone and wording of your recent message suggest that it may have been written by minors or people unfamiliar with proper social media etiquette and morals“, the diplomats wrote, joking that the strait remains open, “although the level of hostility may affect access“.
The Iranian embassy in Zimbabwe also joked, responding to the call to “open the strait“ in one sentence - “We lost the keys“.
A number of other diplomatic missions have also published publications mocking Trump in a similar way.
The Strait of Hormuz is considered a key route for global energy trade - before the conflict in Iran, about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supplies passed through it.
After the start of the US-Israeli military operation, Iran announced a suspension of cargo shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, while stating that the route remains accessible to ships not affiliated with “Iran's enemies“. In March, Tehran announced the introduction of a $2 million transit fee for tankers.
Trump gave Tehran 48 hours to reach a deal with the United States or open the Strait of Hormuz, promising that otherwise "all hell will break loose" on Iran. He later extended the deadline by another 24 hours. The ultimatum expires on the night of April 8 at 2:00 a.m. Bulgarian time.