Iranian officials said that issues between Tehran and Washington must be resolved within 30 days, state media says.
Iranian officials on Sunday sent a message to the United States via Pakistan for a two-month-long ceasefire amid negotiations to end the war, according to state-run media.
The Iranian officials stressed that issues between Tehran and Washington must be resolved within 30 days, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News, with a focus on extending the ceasefire.
It was part of a 14-point proposal that included the release of Iranian frozen assets, sanctions removals, lifting a naval blockade, withdrawing U.S. forces from around Iran, and “a new mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz,” Tasnim said. It did not elaborate on what rules the country wants for the strait, although Iranian regime leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei released a statement last week that “new rules” would be imposed by the regime on the waterway.
U.S. officials have said that Iran cannot have control of, or impose toll fees on, ships passing through the strait, a strategic waterway that links the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean that normally carries 20 percent of the world’s oil. Since the war started, Iran has attacked or threatened ships in the strait and elsewhere in the region, effectively shutting down commercial transit in the waterway and pushing oil and gas prices significantly higher.
President Donald Trump in early April said Iran is doing a “poor job” of managing the strait and said that the country cannot charge fees.
Late last week, the Treasury Department said it would impose sanctions and penalties on ships that pay Iran in any way to pass through the strait. That includes payments to charities such as the Red Crescent, it said in a notice.
There was no mention in state-run media reports, however, of Iran’s nuclear program and its enriched uranium, long the central issue in tensions with the United States. Trump has often said that Tehran cannot be able to obtain a nuclear weapon and indicated that U.S. and Israeli military strikes were initiated in late February to prevent the country from doing so.
Meanwhile, a U.S. naval blockade since April 13 is depriving Tehran of oil revenue it needs to shore up its ailing economy. U.S. Central Command on Saturday said 48 commercial ships have been told to turn back.
