Iran offers Strait deal; Trump dissatisfied
A senior Iranian official said that Iran’s proposal, which has been rejected by US President Donald Trump so far, envisages opening ships in the Strait of Hormuz and ending the US blockade of Iran, and postponing negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump, who has repeatedly said that Iran will never have nuclear weapons, said on Friday that he was not satisfied with Iran’s latest offer for negotiations, while Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran was ready for diplomacy if the United States changed its approach.
Trump also said Friday that he did not favor military action against Iran “from a humanitarian perspective” and told leaders in the U.S. Congress that the cease-fire “ended” hostilities because he did not need their permission to extend the war beyond the statutory period for that day.
“Do we want to go blow them up and end them for good? Or do we want to try to make a deal?” Asked about his options, he told reporters at the White House:
In a speech in Florida later Friday, Trump said the United States would not end its conflict with Iran early and that “the problem will arise again in three years.”
Trump, who has repeatedly said he is in no rush, is under domestic pressure to break Iran’s grip on the strait, which blocks 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies and is driving up U.S. oil prices.
Trump’s Republican Party faces a risk of voter backlash over high prices when the country votes in November’s midterm congressional elections.
Trump spent Saturday in Florida, at the Mar-a-Lago resort and the Trump National Golf Club in nearby Jupiter.
In the evening, he was to visit Trump National Doral, another golf resort outside Miami that hosts the PGA Cadillac Championship.
The United States and Israel suspended bombing campaigns against Iran four weeks ago but appear no closer to a deal to end the war that has caused the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies, roiled global markets and raised concerns about the possibility of a broader global economic downturn.
Iran has blocked nearly all shipping from the Gulf except its own for more than two months.
Last month, the United States imposed its own blockade of ships arriving from Iranian ports.
Washington has repeatedly said it will not end the war, which has killed thousands of people, without a deal that prevents Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; That was Trump’s stated goal in launching the attack in the middle of nuclear talks in February.
Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
The senior Iranian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss secret diplomacy, said he believed Tehran’s latest offer to postpone nuclear talks to a later stage was a significant change aimed at facilitating the deal.
According to the proposal, the war would end with a guarantee that Israel and the United States would not attack again.
Iran would open the Strait and the USA would lift the blockade.
There will then be future talks on restricting Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, and Iran will demand that Washington recognize its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, even if it agrees to suspend it.
“Under this framework, negotiations on the more complex nuclear issue have been moved to the final stage in order to create a more conducive atmosphere,” the official said. he said.
