Trump's Talk Just Wishful Thinking, Iran Refuses to Negotiate with US
The Iranian government has officially stated it refuses to meet directly with United States special envoys who have just been flown to the Middle East. Tehran’s hardline stance immediately shrouds the future of a permanent peace deal between the two parties in deep uncertainty following the outbreak of military tensions over the past weekend.
Citing a Reuters report, senior Iranian officials stressed that both countries must currently focus on remapping the draft and terms of the ceasefire they signed two weeks ago. Iran refuses to move on to heavier negotiation topics—such as restrictions on its nuclear programme—before these crucial technical issues are resolved, proving that the two sides are still at odds regarding the main pillars of the initial 60-day agreement framework.
“No meetings at any level with the American side are scheduled for the coming days,” stressed Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.
This situation contradicts the White House’s plans, where Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, along with special envoy Steve Witkoff, had already landed in Doha, Qatar, for an agenda the US claimed was “high-level” discussions. However, the Iranian government and Qatar as the host confirmed that the US envoy team would only be positioned to meet with international mediators, not face-to-face with the Iranian delegation.
Despite global commercial tanker shipping traffic reportedly beginning to recover partially after being paralysed since war broke out on 28 February, Tehran unilaterally insists on maintaining full rights to control maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz alongside Oman. Iranian officials even threatened to impose toll citations on foreign vessels in the energy chokepoint, which controls a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies, by mid-August when the ceasefire period ends.
“Sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz lies in the hands of Iran and Oman, and traffic in the Strait is subject to arrangements determined by Iran,” chief Iranian negotiator Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf asserted in a state television broadcast.
Although diplomacy is on a knife-edge, world crude oil prices were reported to have experienced a moderate decline after earlier volatility triggered by exchanges of fire between US fighter jets targeting Tehran’s coastal facilities and Iranian ballistic missile strikes on US military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. While energy markets are beginning to relax, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned that countries with vulnerable economies remain in the shadow of risks of food and fuel inflation spikes triggered by this open war.
This battered economic sector places Donald Trump under massive political pressure ahead of the US midterm elections in November, which will determine control of Congress, with Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent now aggressively pushing petrol retailers to lower selling prices. Meanwhile, the draft US-Iran initial agreement was actually expected to halt the war between Israel and Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. However, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, voiced deep doubts about the US-crafted peace draft, assessing that it risks creating a new deadlock by linking the withdrawal of Israeli troops to the disarmament of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.