US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he had rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end hostilities.
“I reject their proposal…I rejected their deal,” Trump told reporters at the White House in Washington.
Iran had proposed an initiative to reopen the strategic waterway at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which it said could end the fighting within seven days.
Tehran said the proposal had been transmitted to Washington via Qatari mediators.
What did Trump say?
“They want to make a deal to immediately open the Strait of Hormuz because they are losing a lot,” Trump said, asserting, “We are winning a lot.”
Earlier, a US official said Reuters that discussions with Iran, conducted through mediators, have been “positive and constructive”.
But the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was skeptical about Tehran’s ability to meet his demands. He reportedly told staff that a new bombing campaign was likely after the U.S. midterm elections in November.
“They want to make a deal and I think that’s great,” Trump said. “What they want to do is immediately open the Strait of Hormuz… because they don’t have any money coming in, because they get their money from the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iranian ports are currently under a US blockade as Washington attempts to pressure Tehran to lift its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. The main waterway remains largely closed to international shipping, despite Trump’s claims that the United States has control of it.
“I would also like to make a deal,” Trump said. “But this agreement would not be acceptable.”
A few hours earlier, the American president had published an image on social networks calling the Strait of Hormuz the “Strait of Trump”.
Strait of Hormuz: what was the Iranian proposal?
Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was returning to Tehran after attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, told CBS News that the proposal was developed “in coordination” with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
He said the process would have started “from the day they accepted it”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who met with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff earlier in the week, said the plan called for a cessation of all hostilities in the Middle East, including Lebanon, with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz on the seventh day of the truce.
He said the conditions were the same as those outlined in a memorandum of understanding signed with the United States earlier this year, which called for the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the U.S. naval blockade.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery
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