Tehran (AFP) – Iran said Monday it had demanded the release of its frozen assets and the end of a US blockade of its ports, after President Donald Trump angrily rejected Tehran’s terms for starting negotiations to halt the Middle East war. The sharp exchange of messages raised the spectre of a return to open conflict in the Gulf, sent oil prices soaring and dashed hopes that a deal could be quickly negotiated to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping.
Trump reacted with fury after Iran responded to the latest US proposal for peace talks with a counteroffer he deemed, in a brief social media post, “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.” The exchange unnerved global energy markets, with crude prices rising by more than four percent before dropping back slightly in afternoon London trading. A top executive warned that the crisis could last for years. “The energy supply shock that began in the first quarter is the largest the world has ever experienced,” said Amin Nasser, CEO and president of Saudi oil giant Aramco, to investors. “If the Strait of Hormuz opens today, it will still take months for the market to rebalance, and if its opening is delayed by a few more weeks, then normalization will last into 2027,” he added.
Aside from energy — in peacetime a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG exports pass through Hormuz — the world also faces a shortage of fertilizer, much of which comes from Gulf ports, and hence food for tens of millions of people. “We have a few weeks ahead of us to prevent what will likely be a massive humanitarian crisis,” Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), told AFP. “We may witness a crisis that will force 45 million more people into hunger and starvation.”
Trump did not specify what had offended him in Iran’s response, but Tehran’s foreign ministry stated that it had called for an end to the US naval blockade and to the war “across the region,” implying a halt to Israel’s strikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Crucially, ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told reporters that Iran demanded the “release of assets belonging to the Iranian people, which have for years been unjustly trapped in foreign banks.” This demand would not only represent a return to the status quo before the United States and Israel launched the war on February 28, but also a victory for the Islamic government’s long-standing campaign against its economic isolation. “We did not demand any concessions. The only thing we demanded was Iran’s legitimate rights,” Baqaei stated.
An end to international sanctions would also diminish Washington’s leverage over Tehran as it tries to secure a lasting end to Iran’s nuclear enrichment. The US, Israel, and their allies have long accused Iran of seeking an atomic bomb, an accusation Tehran has repeatedly denied.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted the conflict would not end until Iran’s nuclear facilities are destroyed. “It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material — enriched uranium — that has to be taken out of Iran,” he told US broadcaster CBS’s 60 Minutes. “There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” he added. The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Iran’s counter-proposal included the possibility of diluting some of its highly enriched uranium, with the rest transferred to a third country. Iran sought guarantees that the transferred uranium would be returned if negotiations failed or Washington abandoned the agreement, sources told the Journal.
Trump is expected to press China’s President Xi Jinping — a major buyer of Iranian oil — on the Iran issue when he visits Beijing on Thursday, according to a senior US official.
The lack of a path to a resolution has focused concern on the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran is restricting maritime traffic and setting up a payment mechanism to charge tolls for crossing ships. US officials have stressed it would be “unacceptable” for Tehran to control the international waterway. The US Navy is also blockading Iran’s ports, at times firing on ships to disable them or boarding and diverting them. In a social media post on Sunday, the spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security commission warned Washington: “Our restraint is over as of today.” “Any attack on our vessels will trigger a strong and decisive Iranian response against American ships and bases,” Ebrahim Rezaei said.
© 2024 AFP
