US President Donald Trump has stated he is \u201cnot satisfied\u201d with Iran\u2019s most recent proposal during negotiations to end the conflict between the two nations, rejecting the plan almost immediately upon its delivery. Iran submitted its latest negotiation proposal to mediators in Pakistan on Thursday night, as reported by Iran\u2019s state-run IRNA news agency. \u201cThey want to make a deal, I\u2019m not satisfied with it, so we\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. The fragile three-week ceasefire between the US and Iran appears to be holding, despite both countries exchanging accusations of violations. While the ceasefire has largely stopped fighting within Iran, the US and Iran remain in a standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway through which one-fifth of the world\u2019s traded oil and gas passes during peacetime. A US Navy blockade preventing Iranian tankers from reaching international waters has left Iran\u2019s economy struggling. The global economy is also under pressure as Iran maintains its leverage over the strait. Negotiations have proceeded via phone after Mr. Trump canceled his envoys\u2019 trip to Pakistan last week, the president stated. This week, Mr. Trump proposed a new plan to reopen the crucial passageway utilized by America\u2019s Gulf allies for their oil and gas exports. On Friday, Mr. Trump voiced frustration with Iran\u2019s leadership, characterizing it as fractured. \u201cIt\u2019s a very disjointed leadership,\u201d Mr. Trump said. \u201cThey all want to make a deal, but they\u2019re all messed up.\u201d Discussing a briefing he received on Thursday with Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, the president stated that the US has only two options regarding Iran. \u201cI mean, 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? I mean, those are the options,\u201d Mr. Trump said. Mr. Trump mentioned he believes Iran\u2019s leadership has made some progress toward unifying around a resolution. \u201cThey\u2019ve made strides, but I\u2019m not sure if they ever get there,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s tremendous discord; they\u2019re having a tremendous problem getting along with each other in Iran.\u201d Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, conducted a series of calls on Friday with many of his regional counterparts, including those from Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Azerbaijan, to brief them on his country\u2019s latest initiatives to end the war, according to his social media. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas also spoke by phone on Friday with Mr. Araghchi. They discussed ongoing diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and long-term security arrangements, Ms. Kallas\u2019s office stated. Ms. Kallas has also been in contact with the EU\u2019s Gulf partners. Pakistani officials have stated that efforts are continuing to ease tensions between Iran and the US. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told a cabinet meeting on Wednesday that a response from Iran was still pending. Meanwhile, Iran\u2019s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran following a \u201ccatastrophic deterioration\u201d of her health, her foundation announced on Friday. The Narges Mohammadi Foundation reported that the Nobel laureate experienced two episodes of complete loss of consciousness and a severe cardiac crisis. She was believed to have suffered a heart attack in late March, according to her lawyers who visited her a few days after the incident. The hospital transfer comes \u201cafter 140 days of systematic medical neglect\u201d since her arrest on December 12, the foundation stated. Earlier this week, Mr. Trump informed Axios that he had rejected Iran\u2019s proposal to reopen the strait in exchange for the US Navy lifting its blockade of Iranian ports. The Iranian proposal would have postponed negotiations on the country\u2019s nuclear program to a later date, two regional officials said earlier this week. One of the primary reasons Mr. Trump cited for going to war was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. An explosion of leftover bombs from strikes during the war against Iran killed 14 members of the Revolutionary Guard, IRNA and other Iranian media reported on Friday. A report by the Nournews website, believed to be close to Iran\u2019s security apparatus, stated that the explosion occurred near the northern city of Zanjan, northwest of Tehran. It marked the largest number of Revolutionary Guard members reported killed since the ceasefire began on April 7. The report indicated the ammunition included cluster bombs and air mines dropped during the fighting. Since the war commenced on February 28, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, and over 2,600 in Lebanon, where new fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah erupted two days after the war began, according to authorities. Additionally, 24 people have died in Israel and more than 20 in Gulf Arab states. Seventeen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 US service members across the region have been killed.
\n#USIranConflict #TrumpIran #StraitOfHormuz #IranDiplomacy #MiddleEastTensions #Ceasefire #NargesMohammadi #RevolutionaryGuard #NuclearProgram #GlobalSecurity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump has stated he is \u201cnot satisfied\u201d with Iran\u2019s most recent proposal during negotiations to end the conflict between the two nations, rejecting the plan almost immediately upon its delivery. Iran submitted its latest negotiation proposal to mediators in Pakistan on Thursday night, as reported by Iran\u2019s state-run IRNA news agency. \u201cThey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iran-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}