Efforts to end the Iran conflict were at an impasse on Tuesday with US President Donald Trump unhappy at the latest plans from Tehran, which he said had informed the US it was in a “state of collapse” and figuring out its leadership situation.
Iran’s most recent proposal on resolving the two-month war would set aside discussion of its nuclear programme until the conflict was concluded and disputes over shipping resolved.
Trump wants nuclear issues dealt with from the outset, a US official briefed on Trump’s Monday meeting with his advisers said. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said the US has “been clear about our red lines” as it seeks to end the war it began in February alongside Israel.
In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday Trump said: “Iran has just informed us that they are in a ‘State of Collapse’. They want us to ‘Open the Hormuz Strait,’ as soon as possible, as they try to figure out their leadership situation (Which I believe they will be able to do!). Thank you for your attention to this matter!”.
It was not clear from his post how Iran might have communicated that message and there was no immediate response from Tehran to Trump’s latest comments.
War isn’t over: Iran
Earlier, an Iranian army spokesperson told state media that the Islamic Republic did not consider the war to be over.
Iran has largely blocked all shipping apart from its own from the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global energy supplies, since the war began on February 28. This month, the United States began blockading Iranian ships.
Hopes of reviving peace efforts in a conflict that has killed thousands, thrown energy markets into turmoil and disrupted global trade routes, have receded since Trump last weekend scrapped a visit by his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to mediator Pakistan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi shuttled in and out of Islamabad twice during the weekend. He also visited Oman and on Monday went to Russia, where he met President Vladimir Putin and received words of support from a longstanding ally.
Since several senior Iranian political and military figures were killed in US-Israeli strikes, Iran no longer has a single, undisputed clerical arbiter at the pinnacle of power, which may be hardening Tehran’s negotiating stance.
The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, and the elevation of his wounded son, Mojtaba, to replace him as supreme leader, has handed more power to hardline commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian officials and analysts say.
Senior Iranian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the proposal carried by Araqchi to Islamabad over the weekend envisioned talks in stages, with the nuclear issue to be set aside at the start.
A first step would require ending the US-Israeli war on Iran and providing guarantees that the US cannot start it up again. Then negotiators would resolve the US Navy’s blockade of Iran’s trade by sea and the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran aims to reopen under its control.
Only then would talks look at other issues, including the longstanding dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme, with Iran still seeking some kind of US acknowledgment of its right to enrich uranium.
That would bear echoes of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other powers which had sharply curtailed Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from that accord in his first term in office. Now, with his approval ratings falling, he faces domestic pressure to end a war for which he has given the US public shifting rationales.