U.S. strikes on Iran's Kharg Island do not represent a change in American strategy, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday as a U.S. official separately told Reuters the additional strikes on military targets did not impact oil infrastructure.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance attends a press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, at the former Carmelite Monastery in Budapest, Hungary, April 7, 2026. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
U.S. strikes on Iran's Kharg Island do not represent a change in American strategy, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday as a U.S. official separately told Reuters the additional strikes on military targets did not impact oil infrastructure.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, described at least some of the strikes as targeting sites that had been previously struck before and said the attack occurred in the early morning hours of Tuesday.
Vance, speaking separately in Budapest, said the strikes were not a change in U.S. strategy, with the Trump administration confident that it can get a response from Iran by 8 p.m. (0001 Wednesday GMT) in negotiations to end the conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump is demanding Iran forswear nuclear weapons and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil transit waterway.
“We were going to strike some military targets on Kharg Island, and I believe we have done so," Vance said.
"We're not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don't make a proposal," he added. "I don't think the news in Kharg Island ... represents a change in strategy, or represents any change from the President of the United States.”
Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington, Humeyra Pamuk in Budapest
Iran wants to charge fees for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz as part of its proposals to end the war with Israel and the United States after blocking most traffic through the crucial energy waterway for weeks.
Qatar's Prime Minister has issued one of the Gulf's most direct condemnations of Iran's military campaign, demanding an immediate halt to what he called "unjustified Iranian attacks" on Qatar and neighbouring countries.
Iran's newly designated Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is unconscious and in a critical condition following the same American-Israeli airstrike that killed his father on February 28, the British newspaper The Times has reported.
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