DUBAI — Massoud Pezeshkian put the blame on Washington on Saturday. The Iranian president said an interim deal between the two countries had fallen apart because of the United States, then added that Tehran ought to try again.
“We were having negotiations, the cowards (Americans) messed everything up…I still think we should go and conclude it,” he said, in remarks carried on Iranian state TV and reported by Reuters.
That was as far as he went. No next step. No date for another round.
His words come after Iran put forward a proposal in mid-September, after an interim ceasefire collapsed. Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Oct. 19 that the offer was still on the table.
The proposal is built around the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran says the waterway could reopen inside seven days, but only if Washington meets its conditions first. Araqchi has spelled those out before, in remarks reported by Reuters: lift the blockade on Iranian ports, lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports, and stop the fighting on every regional front.
Washington wants the issues handled the other way round. American officials say Iran’s nuclear programme has to be dealt with at the start, not at the end. Vice President JD Vance put it this way earlier this month: Iran, he said, must make a “meaningful” cut in how much uranium it can enrich.
For Tehran, the strait comes first. It is not a small lever. Before the war started on Feb. 28, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade moved through Hormuz.
Reuters reported no American response to what Pezeshkian said on Saturday.
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