President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of American forces seizing Iran's Kharg Island, the country's primary oil export terminal in the Persian Gulf, while simultaneously threatening to destroy the facility along with Iran's power plants, oil wells and desalination infrastructure if a negotiated settlement is not reached soon. Trump made the remarks in an interview with the Financial Times published Monday and in a separate social media post, saying the U.S. is engaged in talks with what he described as a 'new and more reasonable' Iranian regime. 'Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don't. We have a lot of options,' Trump told the newspaper.

Iran's Foreign Ministry rejected Trump's characterization of the negotiations, with spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei stating that Tehran has had no direct talks with Washington and that U.S. demands conveyed through intermediaries have been 'excessive and unreasonable.' Baghaei said what has occurred so far amounts to messages passed through third parties, including Pakistan, and accused the U.S. of constantly shifting its position. Trump, however, said Iran had agreed to allow 20 ships carrying oil through the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday as 'a sign of respect,' a claim Tehran did not confirm.

The standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil shipping lane that Iran has blockaded during the conflict, remains the central pressure point in the dispute. Trump had previously set April 6 as a deadline for Iran to reopen the strait or face massive U.S. strikes on its energy infrastructure. Thousands of additional American troops have been deploying to the Middle East as the conflict expands.

The war has drawn in a widening circle of actors. Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya military command threatened to target the residences of American and Israeli military commanders and political officials in retaliation for what it called terrorist actions and strikes on Iranian residential areas. Iran's Revolutionary Guard separately warned that Israeli universities and U.S. university branches in the region could become 'legitimate targets' unless safety assurances for Iranian universities are provided. Spain also announced it has closed its airspace to U.S. military aircraft involved in the Iran conflict, with Defense Minister Margarita Robles saying the restriction had been communicated to American forces from the outset.

On a separate regional front, Iran's judiciary announced Monday it had begun revoking residency permits for approximately 1,200 UAE citizens living in Iran, a retaliatory move after the United Arab Emirates revoked residencies for Iranians and shuttered Iranian institutions in Dubai. The U.S.-Israel joint campaign has targeted several senior Iranian leadership figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and security chief Ali Larijani, drawing concern from the United Nations over the conflict's impact on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Whether direct negotiations will materialize before Trump's stated deadline remains unclear.