Iranian officials say they have received an official U.S. response to Tehran's own proposal to end the seven-month war, which U.S. President Donald Trump rejected days earlier Iranian officials indicated Wednesday they have received an official U.S. response to Tehran's latest proposal to end the seven-month war, which U.S. President Donald Trump had publicly rejected just days earlier.
The officials did not say what the response contained and whether it was a rejection. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the U.S. response to President Masoud Pezeshkian at a Cabinet meeting, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency. General Assembly, where officials held indirect talks with U.S. officials and also met with Qatari and Pakistani mediators on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders.
Araghchi and his delegation were ordered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to leave New York earlier than planned, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the decision who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal administration process. They departed New York very early Tuesday. Araghchi briefed the Cabinet on his trip to New York and the meetings he held there, including Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Mohajerani said had been conveyed through mediators.
Araghchi last week said he floated the proposal to reopen the strait in a week if the U.S. agreed to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, release frozen Iranian assets and waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other conditions. Trump swiftly rejected the proposal, saying Iran wanted to make a deal because it was “losing so badly” but that its offer “would not be acceptable.” Despite Trump's public rebuff, mediators continued working with Iran and the U.S. to try to broker a deal to end the fighting and open the strait, according to officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Treasury Department unveiled new sanctions on Tuesday targeting people and companies around the globe that it accuses of being financial facilitators or enablers of Iran’s military supply chain.
The latest action is part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Economic Outcast” campaign aimed at severing “critical financial lifelines” for the already heavily sanctioned Iranian government. Ten people and entities based in Iran, Hong Kong and Pakistan now face sanctions over accusations of procuring weapons and weapon components for Iran’s defense ministry as it fights its now seven-month war against the U.S. Iran's economy, under heavy strain before the war started, has been in a free fall since the conflict began in late February.
The country's currency fell to a record low on Tuesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar in a stark reflection of how the war in the Middle East has steadily eroded the Iranian economy. The latest decline came just 27 days after the rial hit its previous record low of 2.2 million to the dollar on Sept. 2. The currency has repeatedly reached new lows since the war began in February.
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