US President Donald Trump has announced that he wants to examine a plan submitted by Iran to end the war. However, he could not imagine that this plan would be acceptable, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Iran has “not yet paid a sufficiently high price for what it has done to humanity and the world over the last 47 years,” he said, justifying his forecast. At the same time, Trump warned that there was still the possibility of attacking Iran again if the Iranian leadership misbehaved.
On Friday it became known that Iran had handed over a new proposal to mediators in Pakistan, according to the state news agency Irna. However, US President Donald Trump was dissatisfied with this. Initially, nothing was officially announced about the contents of the new initiative.
Iranian demands
Iran submitted a 14-point plan in response to a US proposal, Tasnim news agency close to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards reported. The Iranian proposal was sent through a Pakistani intermediary and called for “an end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon,” it said. There is currently a fragile ceasefire between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia and Israel.
According to Tasnim, the proposal addresses guarantees against military aggression and the withdrawal of US military forces from the region around Iran. Frozen Iranian assets should also be released. It is also about lifting sanctions and introducing a “new mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz”. The strait is currently blocked for merchant ships.
Trump wants to eliminate Iranian missile production
At the airport in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump told reporters that when it came to Iran, things were going very well for the United States. “They want a deal.” Asked whether he would like to eliminate remaining Iranian missile production capabilities, Trump said: “Yes, I would like to eliminate them.” Otherwise, this would be a start for Iran to be able to rebuild it.
Trump also declared the hostilities in Iran to be over in a letter to the US Congress on Friday. A ceasefire, which Trump extended unilaterally and without a time limit, still applies.
The USA and Israel began their war against Iran on February 28th. Iran responded with missile and drone attacks on Israel and Arab states in the Gulf. A ceasefire has been in effect since the beginning of April. In order to end the war, Washington is demanding that Iran’s nuclear program be stopped in addition to the release of highly enriched uranium. Washington also wants to impose limits on Iran’s ballistic missile development program.
Billion-dollar arms deliveries to partners in the war
Meanwhile, the US State Department approved billions in arms sales to Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. By emergency decision, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio approved eight arms deliveries worth over 25 billion US dollars (around 21.3 billion euros), a ministry spokesman confirmed to the DPA news agency. Due to the declared emergency, unlike usual, no approval from Congress is required.
Since the start of the war, Iran has fired thousands of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at US partners in the region, the statement said. Most of them were successfully intercepted. The ministry also justified the urgency of the approval by saying that the partners “are currently under attack”.
Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, viewed the move as a defiance of Congress. Of the exports listed, only one concerns defense goods that could be exported immediately. “The government is using the pretext of an emergency declaration to push through sales that have no urgent connection to current conflicts,” he said.
Fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah
Meanwhile, the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon remains fragile. The Israeli military announced on the Telegram platform in the evening that numerous terrorist infrastructure facilities had been attacked in southern Lebanon on Saturday and that “terrorists” who had operated in close proximity to Israeli soldiers had been eliminated. The attacks destroyed 70 Hezbollah military structures, including weapons depots.
