Any changes to the proposal could further delay the agreement to officially end the war in the Middle East and open the shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz. The agreement has been attempted for many weeks, despite hostile rhetoric and occasional armed clashes.
“The New York Times” and “Axios” reported on Saturday that D. Trump returned a new plan with “stricter” conditions to Iran for consideration, although it remained unclear what exactly was meant.
D. Trump has said that his priorities for any agreement include preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and opening the blocked Strait of Hormuz.
“One guarantee I must have is that there will be no nuclear weapon. They agreed to that, and that was very interesting,” the US president said in an interview broadcast Saturday evening to his daughter-in-law Lara Trump on her “Fox News” show.
However, Tehran has previously questioned D. Trump’s statements, and the countries’ positions on key priorities appeared very different.
According to Iranian media, Tehran stated that before starting substantive negotiations on issues such as the Iranian nuclear program, it demands the release of frozen assets worth $12 billion (10.31 billion euros), and called previous D. Trump comments that Iran’s enriched uranium – the raw material for nuclear weapon development – would be destroyed “unfounded.”
Tehran also demands that Lebanon be included in any war-ending agreement, despite ongoing fighting, with Beirut accusing Israel of a “scorched earth policy,” its forces advancing and carrying out new air strikes, which it claims target the Iran-backed group “Hezbollah.”
Earlier, D. Trump and US officials said they were close to reaching an agreement, but in an interview with Fox TV he did not dare to speak about the timeline and hinted at renewed military actions.
“I’m not in a hurry,” he said. “Slowly but surely, I think we’re getting what we want, and if we don’t get what we want, it will end differently.”
