The Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations said the US rejected Iran’s proposal to end the ongoing war there because Iranian negotiators “were asking for everything up front”. Echoing comments by Donald Trump on Saturday, the president’s UN ambassador Mike Waltz told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that Iran had asked for relief “from billions and billions of sanctions that are going into place” as part of an economic blockade on Iran. The blockade is aimed at putting pressure on Iran to stop its attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz.
Trump said the US was “winning tremendously” and had “total control of the Hormuz strait”. Waltz pointed to the failed US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed in Pakistan in June that laid out a 14-point framework agreement for a negotiated peace. Iran, he said, “immediately violated it by attacking international shipping, in violation of international law, and 146 nations have joined us in condemning Iran for those attacks”.
Iran on Sunday insisted that only diplomacy can solve its conflict with the US and Israel. It is up to President Trump to choose.” The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in an interview with the CBS show Face the Nation, said his country was ready for talks on its nuclear program and other issues – but would not accept “bullying or coercion”. On CNN, Waltz also addressed recent reports that China had assisted Iran in missile targeting of shipping in the strait of Hormuz and on US military bases in the region.
Waltz did not confirm the leaked intelligence assessments but said Trump had raised the issue with China premier Xi Jinping during the latter’s recent state visit to the US capital Washington DC. Trump had also done so “multiple times” previously, including during his visit to China in May, according to Waltz. He pointed to Trump’s comments that Iran was miscalculating.
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