Report suggests Tehran will refuse to limit ballistic missile program, clashing with Trump’s demands; Iranian army official says US ‘negotiating with itself,’ Iran will never make a deal.
US officials were said to be frustrated on Wednesday by a list of conditions Iran laid out for entering into negotiations to end the war, as mixed signals continued to emerge regarding US President Donald Trump’s fledgling efforts to halt the fighting. Iran recently presented the US with a list of demands it expects the Trump administration to honor if it wishes to proceed with ceasefire negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, almost a month into the war that began with US and Israeli strikes against Iranian regime targets on February 28.
Among those demands, the report said, the Islamic Republic was seeking economic control over the Strait of Hormuz, a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the continued ability to developing its ballistic missile program without any limitations. Other purported conditions, including the dismantling of US army bases in the region and financial compensation for war damages, have been previously reported. The demands were presented via third-party intermediaries, the report said, and there has been no direct contact between Washington and Tehran.
Many of Iran’s demands would appear to be in complete contradiction to Washington’s own reported conditions for ending the war. The US expects, among other things, for Iran to limit both the range and quantity of its missile programs and to commit to using them only for self-defense; to abandon its practice of forming and supporting regional proxies, including Hezbollah; and to dismantle all existing nuclear capabilities and hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium.
US and Middle Eastern officials cited by the Journal on Wednesday dismissed Iran’s purported demands as unrealistic and suggested they would make the chances of reaching a deal with Tehran even slimmer than during the last-ditch attempt at negotiations before the war broke out Iran, shoring up that assertion, tauntingly suggested on Wednesday that the US was negotiating with itself.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly denied that it is involved in talks with the US regarding an end to the hostilities, even as Trump has insisted that negotiations “with the right people” in Iran were well underway.In remarks to state media, the top spokesperson for Iran’s joint military command, Ebrahim Zolfaqari, questioned whether “the level of your inner struggle reached the stage of you negotiating with yourself?״
“People like us can never get along with people like you,” he said in the pre-recorded video statement. “The strategic power you used to talk about has turned into a strategic failure.” “Your era of empty promises has come to an end,” continued Zolfaqari. “As we have always said… no one like us will make a deal with you. Not now. Not ever.” (Read More)
