Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that Iran would 'pay the price' for failing to agree a peace deal with the United States, as fresh exchanges of fire across the Middle East underscored how far his long-promised agreement with Tehran has slipped from reach.
The US and Iran have been locked in a grinding conflict that Washington insists it is close to ending. A shaky ceasefire was announced on 7 April, and since then Trump has repeatedly claimed that a peace deal was just days away. That narrative collapsed this week after Iran's military shot down a US Army Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, prompting American retaliatory strikes and a new round of Iranian missile and drone attacks on US bases in the region.
