Iran denied on Wednesday a claim by US President Donald Trump that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had asked for a ceasefire.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, called Trump's claim "false and baseless," reported Iranian state media.
In a separate statement, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps declared that the Strait of Hormuz "is firmly and decisively under the control" of its forces.
"This strait will not be opened to the enemies of this nation through the ridiculous spectacle by the president of the United States," it added.
The statements came after Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Iran’s new regime president, much less radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!"
Trump set a condition for the ceasefire: "We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!"
The President has recently been claiming that Iran has effectively undergone regime change, given that those who led the country at the outset of the war have been eliminated.
Speaking to the press in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump predicted that the war would last another two to three weeks and added, “We're negotiating with them right now. We have had regime change. Regime change was not one of the things I had as a goal. I had one goal. They will have no nuclear weapon. And that goal has been attained. They will not have nuclear weapons. But we're finishing the job. And I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job."
Trump stated that “we want to knock out every single thing they have. It's possible that we'll make a deal before that..but if they come to the table, that'll be good. But it doesn't matter whether they come or not. We've set them back. It'll take 15 to 20 years for them to rebuild what we've done to them."
He continued, “They have no Navy. They have no military. They have no Air Force. They have no telecommunications and no anti-aircraft systems. They have no leaders. You know, their leaders are all gone. That's why we have regime change. We have nice new leaders."
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Passover in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)