Washington , September 26 : In a development that will put the world and West Asia on tenterhooks, Wall Street Journal has reported that President Trump has rejected Iran’s proposal for a seven-day ceasefire.
According to the report, which quoted US officials, the US President has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms. This follows his open threat of annihilating Iran made during his speech to the UN General Assembly earlier this week.
“I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? But I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election, because it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” he told the Assembly on September 22.
On Thursday, Iran’s foreign Minister Syed Abbas Aragchi had said that Iran has offered a seven-day plan to end the conflict in West Asia. The plan would also seek to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and then begin comprehensive talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
Araghchi, told reporters at the United Nations General Assembly that the proposal was similar to the MoU reached between US and Iran in June this year.
“We have introduced a plan to the United States through the intermediators that if certain conditions are met, the Strait of Hormuz would be open on the end of the seventh day and talks would restart…it would be better, if a deal was reached before the U.S. midterm elections,” he said.
In his meeting with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, Araghchi stressed that the Islamic Republic of Iran has conveyed to the American side its reasonable conditions and requirements for advancing diplomacy, emphasizing that restoring security to the region requires an end to US interventionist and aggressive actions against Iran.
The Iranian foreign minister underscored Iran’s commitment to pursuing diplomacy regarding its peaceful nuclear program, stressing that no party can ignore Iran’s good faith in the negotiations, as well as the US and Israeli military aggression against Iran in the midst of the talks, while portraying Iran as responsible for insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Fox News, Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian blamed US President Donald Trump and the American side for the failure to implement the negotiated settlement that both sides had reached at in June this year.
“We did reach an agreement with your president, that agreement was signed, and based on that, we are willing and still wish to move forward. And the framework was agreed upon. We had not closed the Strait of Hormuz; it was open, without any legal justification or framework…They attacked us. They assassinated and martyred our esteemed supreme leader; our scientists are military commanders and government. The problem is that America, instead of conducting dialogue, they descend into the arena by bombing us first, by blocking every pathway. We are ready,” he told Fox News.
Now, with Trump rejecting a peace overture from the Iranians, the heat in West Asia is likely to get more intense once the US mid-term elections get done and dusted.
