US president Donald Trump discussed a new Iranian proposal on resolving the war with Tehran with his top national security aides on Monday, as the conflict remains in a stalemate, with energy supplies from the region reduced.
Iranian sources earlier on Monday disclosed Tehran’s latest proposal, which would set aside discussion of Iran’s nuclear programme until the war is ended and disputes over shipping from the Gulf are resolved. That is unlikely to satisfy Washington, which says nuclear issues must be dealt with from the outset.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said he thought Iran was trying to buy more time. “We can’t let them get away with it,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
“They’re very good negotiators. They’re very experienced negotiators. We have to ensure that any deal that is made, any agreement that is made is one that definitely prevents them from sprinting toward a nuclear weapon at any point,” Rubio said.
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Work to bridge gaps between the US and Iran has not halted, sources from mediator Pakistan said, despite the absence of face-to-face diplomacy after Trump called off a trip by his representatives over the weekend.
Hopes of reviving peace efforts have receded since the US president scrapped a visit on Saturday by his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, where Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi shuttled in and out twice over the weekend.
Trump, speaking in Florida on Saturday, said he cancelled his envoys’ visit due to too much travel and expense for what he considered an inadequate Iranian offer.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday Iran’s leadership was humiliating the United States by getting US officials to travel to Pakistan only to leave without making progress, in an unusually abrupt rebuke over the conflict.
“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” he said during a talk to students in the town of Marsberg.
“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called revolutionary guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible,” he added at the venue in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Araghchi also visited Oman over the weekend and went to Russia on Monday, where he met president Vladimir Putin and received words of support from a long-standing ally.
With the warring sides still seemingly far apart on issues including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and access through the crucial Strait of Hormuz, oil prices resumed their upward march when trade reopened on Monday. Brent crude was up about 2.5 per cent at about $108 a barrel.
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Senior Iranian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the proposal carried by Araghchi to Islamabad over the weekend envisioned talks in stages, with the nuclear issue to be set aside at the start.
A first step would require ending the US-Israeli war on Iran and providing guarantees that Washington cannot start it up again. Then negotiators would resolve the US blockade and the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran aims to reopen under its control.
Only then would talks look at other issues, including the long-standing dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme, with Iran still seeking some kind of US acknowledgment of its right to enrich uranium for what it says are peaceful purposes.
Washington, which says its main war aim has always been preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, wants Iran to give up a stockpile of highly enriched uranium and forgo further enrichment of material that could be used to make a bomb.
Although a ceasefire has paused the US-Israeli strikes on Iran that began on February 28th, no agreement has been reached on terms to end a war that has killed thousands, driven up oil prices, fuelled inflation and darkened the outlook for global growth.
Iran has largely blocked all shipping apart from its own from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began. The strait normally carries a fifth of global oil shipments. This month, the US began blockading Iranian ships.
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Fighting has intensified in Lebanon, where Israeli strikes killed 14 people and wounded 37 in the south on Sunday, according to the health ministry, making it the deadliest day since a US-brokered ceasefire was agreed in mid-April.
Iran says it will not hold talks on the wider conflict unless a ceasefire also holds in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of the Iran-backed group Hizbullah, which fired across the border in support of Tehran.
Israel and Hizbullah blame each other for violating the truce agreed between Israel and the Lebanese government in Washington and extended last week.
Israeli forces have ordered hundreds of thousands of people out of their villages and have been bulldozing homes where they say Hizbullah fighters operated. The military warned residents on Sunday to leave seven more towns beyond the occupied buffer zone.
– Reuters
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