Iran insisted on Sunday that only diplomacy can solve its conflict with the United States and Israel, after US President Donald Trump said he rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end fighting.

"Our conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent on these conditions being met," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on social media. "Only a negotiated solution can get them out of this deadlock."

Iran announced a peace proposal last week at the UN General Assembly in New York, saying it had been transmitted to the Americans via Qatari mediators. Trump said on Saturday he rejected the plan, and argued that desperation was driving the Iranians’ push for an agreement on the key waterway.

"They want to make a deal to open the Hormuz Strait immediately because they're losing so badly," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Keeping the door to diplomacy open, however, Trump told Axios in a phone interview on Sunday that he expected US negotiators to engage in more talks this week.

"They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make," Trump told Axios. "It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago."

"They overplayed their hand," Trump said, in the interview published on Sunday.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Axios reported that indirect talks between Washington and Tehran could take place as early as Monday.

Araghchi said mediators facilitating Tehran's talks with Washington had not officially relayed a US rejection of the plan. "We are waiting for the mediators to convey the definitive views to us, and we will make a decision based on them," Araghchi posted.

The US has imposed an economic blockade on Iran to put pressure on Tehran to stop Iranian attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, which have drastically reduced shipping through the area even as Trump repeatedly asserts that the US controls the waterway.

The commander-in-chief of Iran's army, Amir Hatam, said the war was at a critical and decisive stage, adding that Tehran would not accept a situation in which it was unable to trade while foreign powers used the region's strategic waterways.

"If Iran cannot trade, if Iran cannot live, no one will be able to trade or live," he said, in comments reported by state media.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards meanwhile said that they seized an American submersible drone on Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz.

It said the underwater vehicle was being used "for espionage purposes", adding that it was "now in the hands of the force's specialists for data recovery". (Agencies)



Edited by Cecil Wong