Iran military official says war with with US ‘likely’ to restart as Trump 'not satisfied' with Tehran's proposal
A senior Iranian military official warned that renewed fighting with the US was “likely” after US President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s proposal.
The draft proposal was delivered to the US via mediator Pakistan on Thursday evening, the state media reported, without elaborating on its contests. Mohammad Jafar Asadi, a senior figure in Iran military’s central command, said a “renewed conflict between Iran and the United States is likely”, AFP cited quoting Fars news agency.
Trump earlier said he was “not satisfied” with Iran’s proposal. “At this moment I’m not satisfied with what they’re offering,” the US President had said. The conflict, which began after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, has been on hold since April 8 after a temporary ceasefire was announced.
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Asadi posed uncertainty on the fragile truce, saying, “Evidence has shown that the United States is not committed to any promises or agreements.”
What did the rejected Iranian deal propose?
While there has been no official confirmation on the details of the new draft proposal sent by Iran, a senior Iranian official cited by Reuters news agency revealed that it had proposed the reopening of Strait of Hormuz.
According to the official, the deal proposed restoring of normal shipping through Hormuz and the ending of the US blockade on Iran before any talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme. The official further stated that its latest proposal of pushing nuclear talks to a later stage was aimed at facilitating an agreement, Reuters reported.
Iran has effectively blocked nearly all shipping from the Gulf apart from its own for more than two months, with the US last month imposing its own blockade of Iranian ports.
However, Washington has repeatedly asserted that it would not agree to ending the conflict without guarantees preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.
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Trump says ‘prefer not’ to strike Iran
Meanwhile, when asked whether the US would resume military operations on Iran, Trump stated that he would “prefer not” to do so.
“Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever — or do we want to try and make a deal?” Trump said, adding that he would “prefer not” to choose the first option “on a human basis.” This comes even as the US President, under pressure to seek congressional approval for the conflict, declared that hostilities were “terminated.”
Washington is dealing with a legal dispute over whether Trump has passed a deadline to seek congressional approval for the war, AFP reported. Officials have argued that a ceasefire pauses the 60-day clock, at the end of which congressional approval is needed. This, however, has been opposed by the Democrats.