DUBAI/ WASHINGTON: Iran is reviewing a proposed agreement with the US to halt their war but has not communicated with Washington for a few days, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, though US President Donald Trump said negotiations had been going on continuously.
More than three months after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran, the conflict is stuck in a stalemate, with a shaky ceasefire in place while the pivotal Strait of Hormuz remains largely shut to maritime traffic.
Iran has not yet responded to a proposed final text of a temporary deal, and was taking a “stern” approach given what it sees as a history of US non-compliance and longstanding mistrust, Mehr News Agency cited a source as saying.
The semi-official Fars agency, also citing a source, added that messages on the possible deal, or memorandum of understanding, had stopped a few days ago, with the last one being Tehran’s “clear message” over Lebanon, where Iran is seeking a halt to Israel’s incursion against its ally Hezbollah.
Trump said that suggestion was “false and erroneous” and that the conversations between the two sides had continued without a pause. “The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today,” he said in a social media post.
He made similar comments on Monday, before the Iranian report.
Trump said on Monday there would be a deal over the next week to extend a ceasefire agreed in early April and reopen the strait.
Since mid-March, he has repeatedly said he is close to a deal, which would postpone thorny issues including the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. A ceasefire has largely held since early April, but Iran and the US have exchanged strikes several times over the past week.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Tuesday that Iran had agreed to negotiate aspects of its nuclear programme that it previously refused to discuss, but added that was not a guarantee that negotiations would lead to a deal.
Trump has said stopping Iran acquiring nuclear weapons was his top priority. Iran has always denied wanting to build a nuclear bomb, saying its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes only.
In the wider war, Iran is pushing for a limited interim agreement as it tries to ease economic pressure while avoiding major concessions on its nuclear programme, according to Iranian sources.
Tehran is seeking an end to hostilities across all fronts including Lebanon, access to billions of dollars in oil revenues, waivers on crude exports, a lifting of a US blockade on its ports, and continued leverage over the strait.
Trump is under pressure to reopen the strait and curb US fuel prices while not making concessions to Iran.
Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser, said in testimony to Congress that the US negotiating team had not offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for reopening the strait, though he said that was the first condition it must meet.
“Iran is being sanctioned because they’ve highly enriched uranium. Iran is being sanctioned because of their nuclear activities. If they agree to give up those things, there will be sanctions relief associated with their commitment and compliance with those agreements,” he said.
Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Tuesday that 24 vessels had transited the strait in the past 24 hours, after obtaining permission from the Guards’ navy.
Highlighting the risk at sea, the world’s largest shipping group MSC said on Tuesday that one of its vessels was struck by two projectiles while in Iraq’s Umm Qasr port the previous day.
The Revolutionary Guards said they carried out the attack in retaliation for a US attack on an Iranian vessel in the Gulf of Oman.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the foreign relations panel, blasted Rubio for failing to provide information to Congress about the administration’s plans.
“When I talk to my constituents, they asked for economic relief at home, not regime change in Havana or Caracas or Tehran,” she said. “Instead, you sent Congress a war powers notification saying we are not in active hostilities with Iran, while the US was conducting strikes against Iran, and Iran was bombing US embassies and bases throughout the Middle East. That was not consultation, it was an attempt to avoid answering to this committee and this Congress about this war.”
Iran wants an interim agreement with sanctions relief that would allow it access to billions of dollars in oil revenue, but Washington has continued to add sanctions against Iranian actors while talks have taken place.
Rubio did not specify when there might be such a deal. He said Iran had intended to build up its conventional weapons capabilities as a “shield” for its nuclear programme. “What they tried to do is they were going to try to build a conventional shield and hide behind that conventional shield,” he said, spelling out why Trump felt it was imperative to launch the war.
Rubio said that Iran´s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who was wounded in US-Israeli attacks and has not been seen in public since assuming office, is alive and increasingly active. “I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level,” Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A senior Iranian military officer said that a resumption of hostilities with the United States was inevitable, as negotiations between Tehran and Washington appeared to stall.
”The United States demands our total surrender, and the Iranian nation will never surrender,” said Mohammad Jafar Assadi, deputy head of Iran´s central military command, Khatam al-Anbiya. “Without surrender, war is inevitable.”
Oil prices dipped and stocks advanced on Tuesday as investors weighed the chances for a peace agreement between the US and Iran and AI enthusiasm again boosting tech stocks.
After wavering at the open, Wall Street´s main stock indices pushed higher during the morning session in New York. Both the Dow and S&P 500 set fresh record highs.
Oil prices spiked higher on Monday on reports of stalled talks to end the Mideast war. The concerns eased after US President Donald Trump insisted that the talks were moving rapidly and that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop fighting—though Israeli strikes resumed Tuesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is offering the United Arab Emirates technical as well as moral support, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said after a visit to the site of a nuclear power plant that came under a drone attack last month.
Grossi said Emirati authorities had reacted very quickly to the attack at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant by shutting down a reactor because of the loss of external power. He said a number of activities would take place to complete repairs at the plant but provided no further details.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates are growing closer because of the Middle East war, a senior Israeli official told AFP, citing increased military cooperation and opportunities to increase trade and business ties.
Two Israeli delegations will arrive next week, the Gulf-based official said, including a transport ministry team that will discuss a trade corridor linking India, the Middle East and Europe. The visits will be the first since the war erupted on February 28.
The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the subject, did not confirm US comments that Israel sent Iron Dome air defence batteries and personnel to the UAE. They also refused to comment on a Wall Street Journal report that the UAE carried out dozens of strikes on Iran in coordination with Israel and the US.
Iran said it will hold a three-day state funeral for late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, killed by US-Israeli strikes on the first day of the Middle East war, at a date to be announced.
A state funeral initially planned for March 4 was postponed due to the war.
”A three-day public funeral is planned,” Tehran Deputy Mayor Mohammad Amin Tavakolizadeh was quoted as saying by state television on Tuesday. He said funeral events would take place in Tehran, as well as in the holy cities of Qom and Mashhad, where Khamenei would be buried. “In Tehran, the ceremony will last at least 24 hours,” Tavakolizadeh stated, adding that up to 20 million people are expected to attend.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would help to make Iran´s “terror regime” disappear.
”This terror regime which is destined to disappear from the world, and we will help bring about this outcome, this regime will no longer threaten us with nuclear bombs and thousands of lethal ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu said at an event marking the appointment of Major General Roman Gofman as the head of Israel´s Mossad spy agency.
Iranian authorities on Tuesday hanged three men convicted of raping children, the judiciary said. Rape and murder are crimes punishable by death in Iran as are, in some cases, armed robbery, drug trafficking, espionage and blasphemy.
Airlines are gradually restoring some flights to the Middle East as regional carriers rebuild schedules after war-related disruption, though the conflict continues to disrupt wider traffic flows. Middle Eastern airlines have added capacity after severe disruption linked to the Iran war, while many carriers outside the Gulf are still diverting Europe-Asia flights to avoid the region.
Bahrain has banned citizens from traveling to Iran and Iraq until further notice citing regional security concerns, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.
Iran and its Shi’ite Muslim proxies in Iraq have launched attacks against Gulf countries, including Bahrain, since the onset of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.
Israel continued to strike southern Lebanon on Tuesday as Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked its troops there despite an apparent Washington-brokered de-escalation deal and a fourth round of US-hosted talks between Lebanon and Israel.
US President Donald Trump had announced an agreement to halt some attacks on Monday, but neither side has publicly accepted it and Israel´s defence minister said the Lebanese capital´s southern suburbs remained potential targets.
Senior Hezbollah official Mahmud Qomati told AFP in a written statement the group “will not accept a partial ceasefire”. “The Zionist enemy should know that any aggression against the suburbs could lead to a deeper and stronger response” from the group, he added.
Lebanon´s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli strikes, some of them deadly, on around 30 locations across the south on Tuesday.
Hezbollah meanwhile said it attacked Israeli troops in southern Lebanese lands they occupy, but has not claimed attacks in Israel.
The Israeli military said it intercepted two projectiles from Lebanon, without reporting any injuries.
Lebanon´s health ministry said on Tuesday that Israeli attacks had killed at least 3,468 people since March 2 -- an increase of 35 compared to Monday. At least 26 Israeli soldiers and one civilian contractor have been killed over the same time frame.
According to Axios Trump called Netanyahu “fucking crazy” and accused him of putting peace talks with Iran at risk. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Washington “endorsed this principle” that his country would hit the suburbs if Hezbollah continued firing at Israel.
”If Israeli towns continue to be attacked, we will evacuate and strike the Shiite Dahiyeh quarter in Beirut, Hezbollah´s stronghold,” Katz said.
The ambassadors of Israel and Lebanon began a new round of direct talks in Washington on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump said he had received commitments from both sides to de-escalate. The fourth meeting between representatives of the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations, is taking place at the State Department and is scheduled to last two days.
Meanwhile, Greek shipping tycoon Evangelos Marinakis has said he would be ready to pay fees to transit the Strait of Hormuz if that would keep the contested waterway open to shipping, the Financial Times reported.
“Even if we had to pay a fee, for me [it would] be much better than to have the straits closed,” said Marinakis, one of Greece’s biggest shipowners, at the TradeWinds shipping conference in Athens on Tuesday.
The billionaire, who has a fleet of 185 vessels and about 35 tankers through his Capital Maritime Group, said that shipowners had for years been paying additional costs due to wider tensions in the region.
The United States announced sanctions on Iran’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange on Tuesday, accusing it of enabling the Iranian government and blacklisted state institutions to circumvent Western sanctions.
The US military said on Tuesday it disabled a Botswana-flagged oil tanker, M/T Lexie, after it attempted to sail toward Iran’s Kharg Island.
A British couple held in Iran have lost their appeal against a 10-year prison sentence, their family said on Tuesday, adding that the pair were not allowed to attend the hearing and had little information about the proceedings. Craig and Lindsay Foreman were sentenced to 10 years in a Tehran prison last year after Iran charged them with espionage, which they deny.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on Tuesday that the US would not let Iranians with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) embed themselves in the country’s delegation to take part in the soccer World Cup that begins this month.
