President Donald Trump has said that he is holding off on a planned military attack on Iran scheduled for today, while efforts continue to reach a deal.
He said on social media last night that he had instructed the US military to be ready for a full, large-scale assault of Iran on a moment’s notice, in event that acceptable deal is not reached.
He said he had been asked by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE to hold off on the planned military attack.
After Iran submitted an updated proposal aimed at charting a path to end the war, the White House said it considers the offer to ‘contain no substantive improvement’ and to be ‘insufficient to reach an agreement’, according to Axios, which cited a senior US official and a source familiar with the issue.
According to Axios, US officials say President Trump wants to reach a deal to end the war, but is considering resuming military operations due to Iran’s rejection of many of his demands and its failure to offer serious concessions regarding its nuclear programme.
The US President is expected to hold a meeting today with senior members of his national security team to discuss military options, US officials said.
“If Iran does not change its position, the United States will have to continue negotiations through bombs,” a senior US official added.
According to the official, the Iranian counterproposal, which was delivered to Washington on Sunday evening via Pakistani intermediaries, included ‘only cosmetic improvements’ compared to the previous version.
The new proposal adds stronger language about Iran’s commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons, but does not include detailed commitments to suspend uranium enrichment or to hand over its current stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
While Iranian state media reported that the United States had agreed to lift some oil sanctions on Iran during the negotiations, the US official said that there would be no sanctions relief for free without reciprocal steps from Tehran.
“We are not making significant progress. We are now in a very dangerous phase. We are pressing them to respond in the right way,” he noted.
“It is time for the Iranians to offer something tangible. We need a real, solid, and detailed discussion about the nuclear programme. If that does not happen, we will conduct the discussion through bombs – and that would be unfortunate.”
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei earlier confirmed that Tehran’s views had been ‘conveyed to the American side through Pakistan’ but gave no details.
A fragile ceasefire is in place after six weeks of war that followed US-Israeli air strikes on Iran, but talks mediated by Pakistan have stalled and President Trump has said the ceasefire is ‘on life support’.
The Pakistani source gave no details of the revised proposal. Asked if it would take time to close gaps, the source said the sides ‘keep changing their goalposts’ and added: ‘We don’t have much time’.
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