IRAN WAR: U.S. rejects Iranian proposal ahead of Trump’s China trip
· Toronto Sun
Iran and the United States reached an impasse again on Monday over how to end their war while their ceasefire grew increasingly shaky, with the two sides exchanging fire in recent days, ships and Gulf states being targeted, and fighting flaring between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The volatility could tip the Middle East back into open warfare and prolong the worldwide energy crisis sparked by the conflict, with Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and America’s blockade of Iranian ports still in place.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to use a trip this week to China to urge Chinese President Xi Jinping to pressure Iran into making concessions and end the current limbo. Beijing is the biggest buyer of the Islamic Republic’s sanctioned crude oil, giving it leverage.
But getting to any deal likely remains tough work. Iran insists it wants to see the American blockade end and sanctions lifted before beginning negotiations over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The U.S. — and Israel — want that material removed since it could be used to eventually build a bomb, should Iran choose to do so. Tehran insists its program is peaceful, but it has enriched uranium beyond the levels needed for civilian power generation.
Here’s the latest on the Iran war for Monday:
Trump rejects new Iranian proposal
Trump immediately rejected a new Iranian proposal sent to him on Sunday via Pakistan. In it, Iran demanded war reparations from the U.S., full Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions and the release of its seized assets abroad, Iranian state television reported.
Iran also called for an immediate end to the war, including the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
“We did not demand any concessions — the only thing we demanded was Iran’s legitimate rights,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Monday. “The American side still insists on its one-sided views and unreasonable demands.”
Iran did, however, offer to dilute part of its highly enriched uranium, and transport the rest to a third country, and called for 30-day negotiations to finalize details, two regional officials involved in the negotiations told The Associated Press .
Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to take the uranium from Iran.
Russia runs Iran’s sole nuclear power plant at Bushehr and also took some of Iran’s uranium stockpile in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Asked Monday about Putin’s comments, Baghaei said: “At the current stage, our focus is on ending the war.”
Iran keeps up its executions
Iran executed another man it accused of spying for both the CIA and Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency identified the prisoner as Erfan Shakourzadeh, saying he had worked on satellite communications and relayed classified information to those intelligence services.
Iran has carried out a string of executions since nationwide protests swept the country in January. Activist groups have long accused Iran of carrying out closed-door trials during which defendants are unable to fully defend themselves.
Iran’s judiciary chief has repeatedly said that Tehran would increase the speed with which it carried out hangings to fight back against its enemies at home and abroad.
Fresh drone attacks
As diplomatic momentum appeared to dwindle, fresh drone attacks in the Gulf on Sunday rattled the ceasefire.
The United Arab Emirates said its air defences intercepted a drone attack launched from Iran, while Kuwait reported “hostile drones” in its airspace.
Qatar’s defence ministry also said a freighter arriving in its waters from Abu Dhabi was hit by a drone.
In a social media post on Sunday, the spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security commission warned Washington: “Our restraint is over as of today.”
“Any attack on our vessels will trigger a strong and decisive Iranian response against American ships and bases,” Ebrahim Rezaei said.
Israel insists enriched uranium must be taken out of Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched the war with Trump on Feb. 28, insisted that the conflict was “not over,” telling CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday that a critical goal is getting the nuclear material out of Iran. If that can’t be accomplished with negotiations, Netanyahu said that Israel and the U.S. agree “we can reengage them militarily.”
Netanyahu also said the current Iranian government’s “days are numbered — but it could take a lot of days.”
The U.S. and Israel have killed dozens of high-ranking Iranian officials, including the country’s supreme leader, in the opening salvos of the war, and the conflict has inflicted heavy damage to Iran’s economy, but its theocracy maintains its grip on power.
– With files from AFP and The Associated Press