Washington (United States) (AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Saturday rejected a truce deal proposed by Iran that Tehran said could have reopened the Strait of Hormuz to shipping within a week. The waterway is key to the world’s energy supply and is now central to the conflict between the US and Iran, which is at a stalemate after nearly seven months.
“I reject their proposal,” Trump told reporters outside the White House. “They want to make a deal where they open the Strait immediately because they’re losing so badly. They want to make a deal and I think that’s fine. I like making a deal too,” he said.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was on his way back to Tehran after attending the UN General Assembly in New York, told CBS News the proposal had been developed “in coordination” with supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to an excerpt from the video interview shared by Iranian media. Iran’s plan calls for a cessation of all hostilities in the Middle East, including in Lebanon, according to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who met earlier in the week with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.
He said the conditions were the same as those laid out in a memorandum of understanding signed with the US earlier this year, which called for the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the US naval blockade. On the seventh day of the truce, Iran would reopen Hormuz. Pezeshkian told CBS that the “process will begin from the very day they accept it.”
In New York, Pezeshkian met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to his office, and said: “Iran has not walked away from the negotiating table but, given past experiences, it no longer trusts the United States.” Araghchi said at the UN: “Iran has conveyed to the United States, through Qatar, a concrete seven-day plan. If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened, and normal maritime passage restored within seven days.”
“The choice now rests with the United States. Iran does not accept coercion, threats or intimidation, and Iran will not surrender its sovereign rights under pressure,” he added. However, within hours of his comments, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was skeptical that Tehran would meet his demands and expects to renew the US bombing campaign. Trump also posted an image to his Truth Social platform of a map showing the Strait of Hormuz circled and labelled “Trump Strait.”
Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying: “We will not cease punishing the US until Iran’s seven conditions are met.”
– Hostilities in Yemen –
Mohebi had told AFP in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that ending hostilities in Yemen was also among Tehran’s demands. Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding in June that was aimed to end the war, to reopen the strait and to launch talks on Iran’s nuclear programme. But the deal broke down shortly afterwards when Iran fired on commercial ships in Hormuz that it accused of deviating from its approved route through the waterway. Iran requires ships to obtain authorisation before passage, citing security and sovereignty reasons. Ships that refuse to comply are regularly targeted, while the United States sporadically bombs Iranian coastal areas in retaliation.
© 2024 AFP
