Iran: US must accept peace plan or face ‘failure’
Iran’s chief negotiator said on Tuesday that Washington must accept Tehran’s latest peace plan or face failure, after US President Donald Trump warned the truce in the Middle East war was on the brink of collapse.
Both sides have refused to make concessions and repeatedly threatened to resume fighting, but neither appears willing to return to all-out war.
“There is no alternative but to accept the rights of the Iranian people as laid out in the 14-point proposal. Any other approach will be completely inconclusive; nothing but one failure after another,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X.
“The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it.”
The Pentagon said on Tuesday that the cost of the war had climbed to nearly $29 billion—about $4 billion higher than an estimate offered two weeks ago.
Latest proposal
Iran sent its latest proposal in response to an earlier US plan, details of which remain limited. Media reports have said the American plan involved a one-page memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the fighting and establishing a framework for negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s foreign ministry said its response called for ending the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, halting the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, and securing the release of Iranian assets frozen abroad under long-standing sanctions.
But Trump slammed Tehran’s reply as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE,” saying the United States would enjoy a “complete victory” over Iran and that the truce that has halted fighting for over a month was on its last legs.
The US president subsequently said ahead of his Tuesday departure for a trip to China that he would have a “long talk” with counterpart Xi Jinping about Iran, but that he does not need Beijing’s help to end the war.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they carried out drills in Tehran “to confront any movement of the American-Zionist enemy,” state media reported on Tuesday.
Defense Ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik said if the United States declines a diplomatic path, “it should expect a repeat of its defeats on the military battlefield.”
‘Living day to day’
The war of words has unnerved people in Iran who face uncertainty.
“We are just trying to dig our nails into anything that could help us survive. The future is so uncertain and we are just living day to day,” Maryam, a 43-year-old painter from the capital Tehran, told Paris-based journalists.
“We are trying to find a way to continue. Keeping hope is very difficult right now.”
Trump’s angry reaction to Iran’s counteroffer sparked a spike in oil prices and dashed hopes that a deal could be quickly negotiated to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping.
Iran is restricting maritime traffic in the waterway and has been setting up a payment mechanism to charge tolls for crossing ships, sparking a global energy crisis that the head of Saudi oil giant Aramco has described as the largest energy supply shock “the world has ever experienced.”
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that classified US intelligence assessments say Iran still has substantial missile capabilities—with about 70 percent of its mobile launchers and pre-war missile stockpile still in action—and has restored access to 30 of 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz.
US officials have stressed it would be “unacceptable” for Tehran to maintain control of the strait, which usually carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas.
