US President Donald Trump said the Iran ceasefire is on ‘life support’ after he rejected Tehran’s latest proposal to finish the 2 countries’ ongoing conflict.
Officials said the proposal included some concessions on Iran’s disputed nuclear programme, but Trump dismissed it as ‘garbage’.
The stalled talks and up to date exchanges of fireplace could tip the Middle East back into open warfare and lengthen the energy crisis.
Iran still has a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and America’s blockade of Iranian ports remains to be in place.
Nonetheless, the US and Iran ostensibly reached a ceasefire last month – though tensions remain high.
Asked at an unrelated White House event if the ceasefire was still in place, Trump said it’s ‘unbelievably weak’ and on ‘life support’ before taking aim on the recent peace proposal from Iran.
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‘I might call [the ceasefire] the weakest immediately after reading that piece of garbage they sent us,’ Trump added. ‘I didn’t even finish reading it.’
Trump is anticipated to make use of a visit to China this week to induce President Xi Jinping to place pressure on Iran. Beijing is the most important buyer of Iran’s sanctioned crude oil.
There are a lot of contested issues standing in the best way of a US-Iran peace deal. Trump has demanded a serious rollback of Iran’s nuclear activities, while Iran is pushing for a more limited agreement that might reopen the Strait and lift the blockade ahead of further negotiations.
Two regional officials said that Iran has offered to dilute a part of its highly enriched uranium and transport the remaining to a 3rd country. Russia has previously offered to take it.
Still, Trump has demanded that the nuclear material be removed completely, and is unlikely to just accept other Iranian proposals for the formalisation of its control of the Strait.
Trump said on Sunday that Iran’s response to his latest proposal was ‘TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!’
Ending the blockade before discussing Iran’s nuclear programme would eliminate a serious point of leverage for Trump.
Within the meantime, the standoff over the Strait, which is a key transit point for the world’s oil and natural gas exports, has sent fuel prices skyrocketing and rattled world markets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched the war with Trump on February 28, has kept insisting that the conflict was ‘not over’.
The US and Israel have killed dozens of high-ranking Iranian officials, including the country’s supreme leader, within the opening salvos of the war, and the conflict has inflicted heavy damage to Iran’s economy.
Iran’s proposal asked that the US recognise its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has effectively closed the Strait because the start of the war, allowing only a small variety of ships to pass and charging tolls.
But experts say such an arrangement would likely violate international law that gives for freedom of navigation.
That proposal can also be more likely to be widely rejected by the international community, because the strait was open to international traffic before the war.
Iran can also be demanding war reparations from the US, the lifting of international sanctions, the unfreezing of Iranian assets held abroad, and an end to the war between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah, based on Iranian state TV.
Israel and Hezbollah have continued to exchange blows, mainly in southern Lebanon, since a nominal ceasefire took hold last month.
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