US President Donald Trump discussed Iran’s latest proposal to end the war but signaled he was unlikely to accept it, multiple US media reported, citing sources.
The proposal, conveyed through Pakistani mediators, involved the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for lifting US naval blockade while delaying negotiations over the nuclear issue to a later stage.
Proposal Discussed
Trump met with his top national security aides on Monday to review the situation in Iran and discuss the new proposal, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
Although she declined to offer an opinion of the proposal, Leavitt emphasized that Trump’s key demands remain unchanged, particularly regarding the reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s enriched uranium.
“I wouldn’t say they’re considering it. I would just say that there was a discussion this morning that I don’t want to get ahead of, and you’ll hear directly from the president, I’m sure, on this topic,” she said.
Trump Not Happy
Trump signaled his dissatisfaction with the new Iranian proposal, according to sources cited by multiple US media outlets.
A US official briefed on the President’s Monday meeting with his security team told Reuters that Trump was unhappy with the proposal because Washington wants to deal with the nuclear issue from the outset.
Similarly, two sources told CNN that Trump was unlikely to accept the Iranian proposal because reopening Hormuz without resolving the nuclear issue “could remove a key piece of American leverage in the talks.”
However, keeping the critical waterway blocked would prolong the higher energy prices that have caused a surge in the cost of gas in the US.
The White House, for its part, declined to comment on the negotiations. “These are sensitive diplomatic discussions and the US will not negotiate through the press,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said in a statement.
“As the President has said, the United States holds the cards and will only make a deal that puts the American people first, never allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” she added.
Iranian Proposal
Iran has offered the US a new proposal, carried by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Islamabad over the weekend. The proposal envisions a three-phased plan, with the first phase requiring the US and Israel to end the war and provide guarantees not to start it again.
In the second phase, mediators would resolve the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and help reaching a deal that reopens the waterway under Tehran’s control, according to sources cited by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
After that, negotiations over other issues, such as Iran’s nuclear program, enriched uranium stockpiles and support for regional proxies, would start.
No Nuclear Weapon for Iran
In an interview with Fox News, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Iranians were trying to “buy themselves more time,” stressing that Tehran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
“We can’t let them get away with it. They’re very good negotiators. They’re very experienced negotiators, and we have to ensure that any deal that is made, any agreement that is made, is one that definitively prevents them from sprinting towards a nuclear weapon at any point,” Rubio said.
Regarding the Strait of Hormuz, Rubio rejected Iran’s attempts to establish a new status quo in the critical maritime corridor.
“Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it,” he noted.
