Iran’s foreign minister met with mediators on Monday in New York City to review the latest proposals from both sides and exchange views about the current state of his country’s war with the U.S. and Israel, according to reports, just days after President Trump rejected Tehran’s latest peace plan.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said ahead of the meeting that he hoped mediators, whose identities the report from semi-official ISNA did not specify, would convey Mr. Trump’s official response to his proposed peace plan.
“We saw the first reaction from the U.S. president, but nothing has yet been conveyed to us by the mediators,” he said ahead of the meeting. “In any case, our conditions are clear, and any move forward toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent on those conditions being met. We will not back down from them.”
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Iran had last week conveyed a seven-day peace plan to the U.S. via mediators while both nations were present in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly. The plan called for a gradual removal of the U.S. naval blockade, an easing of sanctions, a ceasefire and the unfreezing of Iranian assets.
The two parties would then begin negotiations over a final settlement to the war, which the U.S. and Israel began in late February intending to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and inspire regime change.
Mr. Trump publicly rejected the proposal over the weekend, implying that Iran wanted to make a deal because “they’re losing so badly.”
“We’re winning tremendously,” the president said. “They want to make a deal, and I think that’s fine. I like making a deal too, but that deal would not be acceptable. … What they want to do is immediately open the Hormuz Strait. You know why? Because they’re dying. You know why they’re dying? Because they have no money coming in,” he told reporters.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, echoed the president on Sunday, saying the Iranians knew the terms of the agreement would be unacceptable and would be rejected.
The rejection is further evidence of the gulf between the U.S. and Iran on ending a conflict that has threatened global oil supplies and created troubling political headwinds for Mr. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress.
Diplomacy appears to have broken down for both sides around the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping pathway connecting the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. Iran has threatened shipping in the waterway since March, though the U.S. has made progress in moving ships through Omani-controlled waters in the southern end of the strait.
However, traffic by commercial ships through the waterway remains far below pre-war levels and threats to tankers have put significant pressure on global energy prices.
While kinetic action in the strait, either from Iran or the U.S., has been mostly on pause for the last month, the price per barrel of crude oil has surged above $100 throughout September. Brent oil stood at $105 a barrel on Monday afternoon, up from around $89 at the same time last month.
That has translated to higher gas prices in the U.S., with the AAA National Average standing at around $4.48 for a gallon of regular gasoline.
Despite the oil price troubles, the U.S. remains committed to an economic warfare strategy against Iran that Trump administration officials maintain will lead to Tehran’s eventual collapse.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that America’s “Operation Economic Outcast” is responsible for the rapid devaluation of Iran’s currency, the rial, in recent weeks.
“We will continue to degrade the Iranian regime’s ability to fund terrorism and develop a nuclear weapon,” he wrote on X.
The rial on Monday hit 2.44 million per U.S. dollar in the most dramatic drop in weeks. The drop comes as average Iranians struggle to access basic materials such as gasoline and foodstuffs.
Still, Iranian officials in public have offered defiant appraisals of the war, now approaching its seventh full month, and insist that the U.S. will eventually relent.
Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since he was appointed to the position earlier this year, said that Western forces will soon be pushed out of the Arabian Sea as well as the Strait of Hormuz.
He also said that the entirety of the country is willing to take up arms and is “ready for self-sacrifice” even in the face of U.S. military and economic might.
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