War in Iran completes seven months, with Trump rejecting agreement

Last week, during talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Iran suggested a deal to end the conflict and reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz within a week.

However, over the weekend, Trump rejected the proposal. “I’m rejecting their deal,” Trump said on Saturday (26). “They want to make an agreement, and I think that’s great. I also like to make agreements. But that agreement would not be acceptable”, he explained.

“They want to make a deal to open the strait immediately, because they are losing badly. We are winning in a landslide; we have complete control of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump claimed on Saturday, adding that “huge amounts of oil” are passing through the strait.

However, according to data from the Hormuz Strait Monitor platform, only two ships transited the strait in the last 24 hours. Before the US and Israeli war against Iran, almost 140 ships crossed Hormuz per day.

Iran has used the blockade of maritime passage as an instrument of blackmail, which has raised fuel prices in recent months: around 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas transited through Hormuz before the war.

The Tehran regime insists on militarily controlling the strait and charging tolls on ships that use the passage, which is refuted by the United States.

Over the weekend, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Telegram that the Islamic regime was still awaiting a “definitive” official response from the US on Tehran’s proposal, claiming that the American president had previously contradicted statements about the war and negotiations.

“[Trump] made many good statements, as well as many contradictory ones, which unfortunately we hear too often,” said the chancellor. “We are waiting for the mediators to convey the definitive positions to us and we will make a decision based on them.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told CBS that the “distrust generated by this war needs to be overcome” and that his country is open to negotiations, but that “the US needs to demonstrate that it does not intend to overthrow our government”.

At the beginning of the month, during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan, Pezeshkian had stated that Iran is willing to return to the negotiations provided for in the Islamabad Memorandum, signed in June to extend the April ceasefire and open a 60-day period to negotiate a definitive peace agreement.

However, disputes over the management of the Strait of Hormuz led Trump to declare in July that the memorandum had reached “an end”, well before the end of the 60-day period for talks. Since then, the two countries have exchanged specific attacks and there has been no progress in negotiations.

In his speech at the UN General Assembly, on Tuesday (22), Trump made threats against Iran, but at the same time suggested that an agreement could be reached after the midterms, the American presidential midterm elections, scheduled for November.

“I have a big decision to make: Will I make a deal with Iran that allows them to rebuild and create a country much greater than it has ever been — perhaps one of the largest in the Middle East or even the world? Or should I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, without ever giving them the chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

“Should I cast them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness for generations to come? But I believe we will make a deal soon after the election, as it makes no sense for them not to,” he added.

However, in a report published by The Wall Street Journal on Friday (25), before Trump rejected the Iranian proposal, US government sources stated that the president is “skeptical” about the possibility of Iran meeting his demands and told his team that intense bombing of the Persian country should be resumed after the midterms.

The day after Trump’s speech at the UN, Pezeshkian claimed in his speech at the United Nations that Iran has never refused to negotiate – when in fact the Islamic regime has refused at various times over the last seven months to talk to Washington.

“Iran has never been the aggressor, has never started a war and has always demonstrated its commitment to the negotiating table,” he claimed.