Trump expects Iran talks to resume despite rejecting truce proposal
US President Donald Trump said Sunday he expects talks with Iran to resume as early as this week, despite rejecting a Tehran proposal for a seven-day truce and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian officials brought the proposal to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, offering a seven-day halt to hostilities followed by the reopening of the strategic shipping channel.
Trump dismissed the plan and has suggested he could resume full-scale air strikes on Iranian targets. But in an interview with news platform Axios, he said negotiations could restart soon.
“They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make,” Trump said. “It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago.”
“They overplayed their hand,” he said.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Axios reported that indirect talks between Washington and Tehran could take place as early as Monday.
Iran, meanwhile, maintained its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the Gulf front of the conflict at an impasse as fighting continues in Yemen.
Iran insists on conditions
Hormuz, a key chokepoint for global energy supplies, has become central to the conflict between Washington and Tehran, which began nearly seven months ago when the United States and Israel launched a wave of strikes against Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran's proposal called for an end to all hostilities in the Middle East, including in Lebanon, and a return to the terms of an earlier ceasefire agreement that collapsed during fighting over Hormuz.
That agreement included the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the US naval blockade.
“Our conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent upon these conditions being fulfilled. We will not back down from them,” Araghchi said on Sunday, according to state broadcaster IRIB.
“We have never closed the door to diplomacy or negotiations, but at the same time, we have never backed down from our rights.”
Washington's ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, accused Tehran of seeking too many concessions in return for resuming negotiations.
“This was, I think, a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable,” Waltz told NBC News. “To ask for the release of the blockade, the sanctions, international sanctions and access to billions in assets, just to talk.”
He said Trump had little confidence in the proposal after an earlier attempt at negotiations.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards also said Sunday that they had seized a US submersible drone in the Strait of Hormuz, alleging that it was being used “for espionage purposes”. The force said the vehicle was in the hands of its specialists for data recovery.
Hormuz remains key pressure point
Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding in June aimed at ending the war, reopening the strait and starting negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme.
The agreement later broke down after Iran fired on commercial ships in Hormuz that it accused of deviating from its authorised route through the waterway.
Iran requires ships to obtain permission before passing through the strait, citing security and sovereignty concerns. Ships that refuse to comply have been targeted, while the United States has periodically carried out strikes on Iranian coastal areas in retaliation.
Araghchi said at the UN that Tehran had conveyed a concrete seven-day plan to Washington through Qatar.
“The choice now rests with the United States,” he said.
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.”
Mohebi told AFP in an interview on Tuesday that ending hostilities in Yemen was also among Tehran's demands.