US President Donald Trump has angrily rejected Tehran’s response to a US peace proposal as “totally unacceptable,” continuing a deadlock over bringing an end to their war.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said in his weekly press conference on May 11 that Tehran’s response included stopping the war, lifting the US blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, freeing Iran’s assets, and “establishing security in the region and Lebanon.”
“I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” he wrote in a terse statement onTruth Sociallate on May 10, without indicating if it would bring the return of air strikes over Iran.
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Following Trump’s post, Iranian state media said that accepting the US conditions would amount to the country’s “surrender” to what it called “excessive demands.”
Baqaei said “the only thing we demanded was Iran’s legitimate rights.”
Many reports have suggested the US plan is set out in a one-page memorandum that called for an end to fighting and the unblocking of the Strait of Hormuz but which left other key issues — including Iran’s right to enrich uranium — until later.
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Trump has taken a dual line in public statements, stressing the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the war while alternatively threatening massive new air strikes on Iran’s energy and power infrastructure.
In aninterviewwith journalist Sharyl Attkisson, broadcast on May 10, Trump said that American military operations against Iran may not be over, suggesting the United States could still target additional sites if necessary.
Asked whether combat operations involving Iran had concluded, Trump responded: “No, I didn’t say that. I said they were defeated, but that doesn’t mean they’re done. We could go in for another two weeks and hit every single target.”
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Trump added that US and Israeli strikes had already hit “probably 70 percent” of the intended targets since launching air strikes on Iran on February 28.
The campaign was halted on April 8 when a two-week cease-fire was agreed via mediation by Pakistan. The strikes have not resumed even though the deadline has passed.
“We have other targets that we could conceivably hit,” Trump said. “But even if we don’t, it will take years for them to rebuild.”
He also addressed Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles, saying the United States was monitoring the sites closely.
“We have it under surveillance,” he said, adding that US space-based monitoring capabilities were tracking activity around the facilities.
Iran has repeatedly rejected proposals that would require it to transfer its stockpile of enriched uranium to the United States.
Former senior US diplomat Gordon Gray, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs under President George W. Bush, told RFE/RL in an interview that indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran are likely to continue despite what he described as significant pain and pressure on both sides.
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“I don’t see diplomacy breaking down. I think there will be a continuation of discussions,” said Gray, who also served as US ambassador to Tunisia and deputy chief of mission in Egypt and now is a professor of Gulf and Arabian Peninsula affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be military strikes by one side or the other, but at the end of the day both sides have an incentive to get out of the situation they’re in because the other side has created sufficient pain and therefore sufficient incentive for some kind of resolution.”
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Farda and Reuters
US, Iran Clash Over Peace Proposal As Gulf Stalemate Continues
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