By Parisa Hafezi and Alexander Cornwell
DUBAI/TEL AVIV, March 25 (Reuters) – Iran is reviewing a U.S. proposal to end the war in the Gulf but has no intention of holding talks to end the widening Middle East conflict, the country’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.
The comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi suggested some willingness by Tehran to negotiate an end to the war if its demands were met.
Still, the exchange of messages through mediators “does not mean negotiations with the U.S.,” he said on state television.
“They put forward ideas in their messages that were conveyed to top authorities, and if necessary, a position will be announced by them,” Araqchi said.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s 15-point proposal, sent through Pakistan, calls for removing Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium, halting enrichment, curbing its ballistic missile program and cutting off funding for regional allies, according to three Israeli cabinet sources familiar with the plan.
The White House declined to disclose specifics of its proposal and threatened to escalate its strikes.
“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,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
A senior Israeli defence official said Israel was skeptical Iran would agree to the terms, and that Israel was concerned U.S. negotiators might make concessions. Israel also wants any agreement to preserve its option to conduct pre-emptive strikes, a second source said.
MARKETS RESPOND POSITIVELY TO PROPOSAL
Global equity markets regained some ground while oil prices fell on Wednesday after reports that Washington had sent the proposal to Iran, with investors hoping for an end to a war that has disrupted global energy supplies and risks fuelling inflation.
The Pentagon is meanwhile planning to send thousands of airborne troops to the Gulf to give Trump more options to order a ground assault, sources have told Reuters, adding to two contingents of Marines already on their way. The first Marine unit, aboard a huge amphibious assault ship, could arrive around the end of the month.
Iran could open a new front at the mouth of the Red Sea if attacks are carried out on its territory, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency cited an unnamed military source as saying on Wednesday. The source said that Iran has the capability to pose a “credible threat” in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which lies between Yemen and Djibouti.
Iran’s parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said his country would attack an unnamed neighboring country if it cooperated with efforts by “the enemies” to occupy one of its islands.
Since the start of what the U.S. calls “Operation Epic Fury”, Iran has attacked countries that host U.S. bases and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday warned: The “world is staring down the barrel of a wider war” in the region.
“It is time to stop climbing the escalation ladder – and start climbing the diplomatic ladder,” he said at the U.N. headquarters in New York.
MORE STRIKES
The war has raged with no let-up in air attacks against Iran, or in Iranian drone and missile strikes against Israel and U.S. allies.
An Israeli military official, asked whether Israel had adjusted its military plans since Trump said talks were under way, said it was “pretty much business as usual”.
The Israeli military described several new waves of attacks against Iranian naval shipyards and other targets.
The semi-official Iranian SNN News Agency said a residential area was hit in Tehran, with rescuers searching the rubble.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had launched new attacks against Israel and U.S. bases in Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Peter Graff, Keith Weir and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Alex Richardson, Cynthia Osterman and Deepa Babington)
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