Iran says it has “never shied away from negotiations” but will not accept what it describes as imposed peace terms, insisting any settlement must avoid diktat
By Amjad Qaimkhani
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he was “not satisfied” with a new Iranian negotiating proposal, as peace talks remain frozen despite a weeks-long ceasefire. Iran delivered the draft to mediator Pakistan on Thursday evening, the IRNA news agency reported, without detailing its contents.
“At this moment I’m not satisfied with what they’re offering,” Trump told reporters, blaming stalled talks on “tremendous discord” within Iran’s leadership. “Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever — or do we want to try and make a deal?” he added, saying he would “prefer not” to take the first option “on a human basis.”
The war, launched by the United States and Israel with surprise strikes on 28 February, has been on hold since 8 April, with only one failed round of direct talks since. Trump, under pressure at home to seek congressional authorization for the war, wrote to lawmakers on Friday declaring hostilities “terminated” — despite no change in the US military posture.
The Pentagon later said the US would withdraw about 5,000 troops from Germany over the next year after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week that Iran was “humiliating” Washington at the negotiating table. Iran has maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, choking off major flows of oil, gas and fertilizer, while the United States has imposed a counter-blockade on Iranian ports.
The White House has declined to provide details on the proposal, but news site Axios reported US envoy Steve Witkoff had submitted amendments that put Tehran’s nuclear program back on the negotiating table. The changes reportedly include demands that Iran not move enriched uranium from bombed sites or resume activity there during talks.
News of the Iranian proposal briefly pushed oil prices down nearly 5%, though they remain about 50% above prewar levels amid the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran resident Amir told Paris-based media that the stalemate “feels like we are stuck in purgatory” and expressed little hope for the proposal. “This is all to waste time,” he said, predicting the United States and Israel “will attack again.”
