Donald Trump says he would "prefer not" to "blast the hell" out of Iran. Photo / Saul Loeb, AFP
US President Donald Trump said Friday that he was “not satisfied” with a new Iranian negotiating proposal. Peace talks between the two sides have frozen despite a weeks-long ceasefire.
Iran delivered the text of the proposal to mediator Pakistan on Thursday evening, the Irna news agency reported, without offering details as to its contents.
“At this moment I’m not satisfied with what they’re offering,” Trump told reporters, laying blame for the stalled talks with Iran due to “tremendous discord” within its leadership.
“Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever - or do we want to try and make a deal? I mean, those are the options,” he said when asked about next steps, adding he would “prefer not” to take the first option “on a human basis”.
The war, launched by the United States and Israel with a wave of surprise strikes on February 28, has been on hold since April 8, but only one failed round of direct talks has taken place between Iranian and US representatives.
In the meantime, Iran has maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off vast amounts of oil, gas and fertiliser from the world economy, while the US has imposed a counter-blockade on Iranian ports.
Despite the failure to negotiate an end to the war, the ceasefire has held. On Friday, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said “the Islamic Republic has never shied away from negotiations”.
But he added in a video shared by the judiciary’s Mizan Online website, “we certainly do not accept imposition” - though Tehran did not want a return to war.
The White House has declined to comment on the details of the new Iranian proposal.
But the news site Axios reported that US envoy Steve Witkoff this week had submitted amendments to a previous proposal seeking to reinject the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme into the negotiations.
Citing a source familiar with the matter, Axios said they included a demand that Iran not try to move enriched uranium out of sites bombed during a brief war last year, or resume any activity there while talks continue.
Optimism after news of the Iranian proposal sent oil prices falling by nearly 5% for US benchmark West Texas Intermediate.
However, prices are still roughly 50% above their prewar levels as traders confront the prolonged closure of Hormuz.
An EU official told AFP that the bloc’s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas had spoken with Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi by phone on Friday about diplomatic efforts to reopen the strait.
Tehran resident Amir told Paris-based AFP journalists that the current stalemate in talks “feels like we are stuck in purgatory”.
Still, the 40-year-old held out little hope for the new proposal.
“This is all to waste time,” he said, predicting the US and Israel “will attack again”.
Washington, meanwhile, was gripped by a legalistic debate over whether Trump had passed a deadline for requesting congressional approval for his war with Iran.
Administration officials have insisted that the ceasefire means the clock is paused on a 60-day deadline requiring the President to seek war powers authorisation from Congress.
Trump echoed that rationale on Friday, insisting the United States was “in the midst of a big victory”.
Trump is under increasing domestic pressure over the war, with inflation spiking, no clear victory in sight and midterm elections due in November.
In Iran, meanwhile, the economic consequences of the war, which come on top of years of fierce international sanctions, were beginning to bite.
The US imposed new sanctions on Friday against three Iranian foreign currency exchange firms, while the Treasury warned others that paying a “toll” to Tehran for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz could trigger sanctions as well.
On Thursday, the US military said its blockade had stopped Iran from exporting US$6 billion ($10b) worth of oil, while inflation has risen past 50% in recent weeks.
“For many people, paying rent and even buying food has become difficult, and some have nothing left at all,” 28-year-old Mahyar told an AFP reporter based outside Iran.
Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Washington’s international allies for failing to join efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
France and Britain have led efforts to bring together an international coalition of dozens of countries that would help reopen the strait, but only once peace is secured.
But on Thursday, a US official confirmed to AFP that Washington was launching its own international coalition to restart shipping.
That prompted French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot to insist that the US mission was “not of the same nature as the one we established”, and would instead serve as “a sort of complement” to it.
Meanwhile, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has left the Middle East after taking part in operations against Iran, a US official said Friday, though two other carriers remain.
- Agence France-Presse