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Iran submitted its response to the latest US ceasefire proposal through Pakistani mediators and wanted negotiations to focus on a permanent end to the war, but US President Donald Trump quickly dismissed it as “completely unacceptable”! without providing any further details.
Iran wants to end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group, and ensure shipping safety, state television said. Washington’s latest proposal called for an agreement to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and roll back Iran’s nuclear program.
Previously, Trump accused Tehran on social media of playing “games” with the United States for nearly 50 years, adding: “They won’t laugh anymore!”
He is giving diplomacy “every possible chance before hostilities return,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz previously told ABC News.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei – who had not been seen or heard from publicly since the war began on February 28 – “issued new and decisive instructions for continuing operations and forceful confrontation with the enemies in a meeting with the head of the joint military command,” the state broadcaster reported, without details.
Drone attacks target Arab Gulf states
A fragile ceasefire that began April 8 – and was later extended by Trump – was tested on Sunday when a drone lit a small fire on a ship off Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait reported drones had entered their airspace. The UAE said it shot down two drones and blamed Iran. No injuries were reported and no one immediately claimed responsibility.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry called the ship attack a “dangerous and unacceptable escalation that threatens the security of maritime trade routes and vital supplies in the region.” The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center did not provide any information about the ship’s owner or origin.
The spokesman for the Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense, Brigadier General. Saud Abdulaziz Al Otaibi said the armed forces responded to the drones but did not say where they came from.
Iran and allied armed groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah have carried out hundreds of drone strikes since the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.
“Full readiness” to protect nuclear sites
Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume full-scale bombing if Iran does not agree to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and roll back its nuclear program. Since the start of the war, Iran has largely blocked the strategic waterway that is crucial to the global flow of oil, natural gas and fertilizer, rattling global markets.
The U.S. military, in turn, has been blockading Iranian ports since April 13 and says it has turned back 61 merchant ships and disabled four. On Friday it hit two Iranian oil tankers that were reportedly trying to break the blockade. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy says any attack on Iranian oil tankers or merchant ships would be linked to a “serious attack” on US bases in the region and enemy ships.
Another sticking point in the negotiations is Iran’s highly enriched uranium. According to the United Nations nuclear agency, Iran has more than 440 kilograms of enriched atoms with a purity of up to 60 percent, a small technical step away from weapons quality.
US President Donald Trump has justified the war with Iran by saying that the country is only two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. For The National, CBC’s Eli Glasner breaks down these claims and explains how close Iran really came to building a nuclear bomb.
In an interview published late Saturday, an Iranian military spokesman said the armed forces were “fully ready” to protect sites where uranium is stored.
“We thought it was possible that they intended to steal it through infiltration operations or helicopter operations,” Brigadier General said. Akrami Nia told the IRNA news agency.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an excerpt from an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday that the war is not over because enriched uranium must be transported from Iran. “Trump said to me, ‘I want to go in there,’ and I think that’s physically possible,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Moscow’s proposal to source enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a deal remains on the table.
Most of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely located at its Isfahan nuclear complex, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency told The Associated Press last month. The facility was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes during the 12-Day War last year and has faced less severe attacks this year.
Iran warns against Franco-British involvement
Iran’s deputy foreign minister warned against a planned Franco-British action aimed at supporting maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz after the end of hostilities.
“The presence of French and British ships or ships of another country with a view to possible cooperation with illegal US actions in the Strait of Hormuz that violate international law will be met with a decisive and immediate response from the armed forces,” Kazem Gharibabadi said on social media.
French President Emmanuel Macron responded that it would not be a military operation but an international mission to secure shipping as soon as conditions allow.
There have been several attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf over the past week, and U.S. efforts to “route” ships through the strait were quickly halted.
South Korea announced initial results of an investigation that two unidentified objects struck the South Korean-operated ship HMM NAMU about a minute apart last week as it was anchored in the strait, causing an explosion and fire.
A State Department spokesman said officials had not yet determined who was responsible.
