Iran Says It Does Not Trust US as Trump Hardens Terms

Trust, Iran’s chief negotiator made clear, remains in short supply. Tehran will not sign off on any agreement with Washington, he said, unless it can prove that Iranian rights are fully protected.

The comments from Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf came as fresh reports suggested US President Donald Trump had returned a more hardline peace proposal to Iran, highlighting just how much distance still separates the two sides.

Any further revisions to the draft risk slowing an already fragile push to formally end the Middle East war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, after weeks of tense bargaining punctuated by combative language and intermittent violence.

Iran had already been negotiating with the US over the future of its nuclear programme in February when American and Israeli air and missile strikes killed off much of the Islamic republic’s senior leadership.

The New York Times and Axios reported yesterday that Mr Trump had sent back a “tougher” revised framework for Iran to review, although the specifics have not been made public.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said any deal would need to safeguard the rights of the Iranian people before it could win approval

Mr Trump has said his chief objectives are to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and to restore shipping through the Hormuz route, which Iran has blockaded since the conflict began.

“The one guarantee that I have to have is that there will be no nuclear weapons. They’ve agreed to that, and it was very interesting,” he told his daughter-in-law Lara Trump during an interview on her Fox News programme.

Tehran, however, has repeatedly questioned Mr Trump’s claims, and the two governments remain divided on several core issues.

“We will not approve any agreement until we are certain that the rights of the Iranian people have been upheld,” Mr Ghalibaf said in a video aired on state television.

Tasnim news agency said exchanges over the wording of the draft were still continuing, with each side regularly submitting proposed changes.

“No agreement has yet been finalised, and it is possible that any agreement will be rejected,” it said.

Iran has said it wants $12 billion in frozen assets released before it will enter substantive negotiations over its nuclear programme. Iranian media also described earlier Trump comments that Tehran’s enriched uranium stockpile would be destroyed as “baseless”.

Flare-ups

Washington has said one of its military goals in the war was to dismantle Iran’s ballistic missile programme. General Dan Caine, the top US military officer, said in April that more than 80% of Iran’s missile facilities had been hit.

But CNN reported today that a satellite-image analysis showed Tehran had since managed to excavate 50 of the 69 tunnel entrances struck by US attacks across 18 underground missile sites.

Although the daily bombardment across Iran and the Gulf stopped after Tehran and Washington agreed to a temporary ceasefire in April, isolated attacks have continued.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shot down a US military drone that was “about to enter Iranian territorial waters”, according to state broadcaster IRIB, though Washington has not confirmed the report.

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Even so, diplomatic contacts have continued as Mr Trump faces mounting pressure to clinch a deal that would end rival US and Iranian blockades around the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint critical to global oil flows.

After Mr Trump said Iran would impose “no tolls” on vessels using the strait under any agreement, Iran’s Fars news agency cited sources saying there was “no such clause”.

ISNA, Iran’s state news agency, quoted lawmaker Alireza Salimi on Saturday as saying a proposal for Iranian “management and sovereignty” over the waterway — including “administrative fees” — would soon be presented to parliament.

Tehran has also insisted that any peace settlement must address Lebanon, where intense fighting is still under way. Beirut has called for “a swift and real ceasefire” and accused Israel of pursuing a “scorched-earth policy” as it broadens operations against the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

Diplomatic sources told AFP that the UN Security Council will meet in emergency session tomorrow over the expanding Israeli offensive, after Israeli forces captured the strategic medieval castle of Beaufort.