President Donald Trump on Wednesday night said that Iranian leaders “are negotiating” with the United States on a path to end the war.
“By the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they’re afraid to say it because they will be killed by their own people. They’re also afraid they’ll be killed by us,” Trump said from the National Republican Congressional Committee’s fundraising dinner on March 25.
Earlier in the day, Iran’s foreign minister said the exchange of messages through mediators does not equate to negotiations with Washington.
“Messages being conveyed through our friendly countries and us responding by stating our positions or issuing the necessary warnings is not called negotiation or dialogue,” Araqchi said on state television. “It is simply an exchange of messages through our friends.”
The White House earlier Wednesday addressed reports of Iran rejecting a 15-point plan to end the war in the Middle East, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying that talks are ongoing and productive.
During a press briefing, Leavitt told reporters that the White House has not confirmed the full proposal, and cautioned against taking “speculative points or speculative plans from anonymous sources” as fact.
“The White House never confirmed that full plan,” Leavitt said. “There are elements of truth to it, but some of the stories I read were not entirely factual. So I am not going to negotiate on behalf of the president here at the podium. What I will tell you is these talks are ongoing. We’re not going to get into the nitty-gritty details that have been exchanged between the United States and Iran at this time.”
She reiterated that the president prefers peace.
“There does not need to be any more death and destruction,” she said. “But if Iran fails to accept the reality of the current moment, if they fail to understand that they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before.”
She said Trump does not bluff and he is prepared to “unleash hell” should Iran once again miscalculate.
“Their last miscalculation cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force, and their air defense system,” she said. “Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refused to understand they have already been defeated and refused to come to a deal.”
“Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” the official said.
“What it showed me is that we’re dealing with the right people,” he said.
The Israeli sources also said that Washington offered sanctions relief and revocation of the “snapback” mechanism, which is a framework for reimposing sanctions. The plan also called for Iran to end its violation of international law under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and lift its impediment to the right of transit passage in the Strait of Hormuz—which is defined as an international strait as it is bordered by both Iran and Oman.
“Iran has rejected the U.S. proposal conveyed through a friendly regional mediator and is prepared to continue its defense and inflict heavy blows on the enemy,” Iran’s consulate statement said. “Iran will end the war at a time of its own choosing and only if the conditions it has set are fulfilled. It will not allow Trump to determine the timing of the war’s end.”
Iranian regime figures told mediators that “no negotiations will be conducted” without its demands being accepted.
The developments come in the wake of Trump saying negotiations were progressing and that “major points of agreement” had been reached in earlier contacts.
Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has pushed back on White House claims that substantive negotiations had taken place. A military spokesman stated that the Americans were “negotiating with themselves.”
