Iranian officials have announced they received an official U.S. response to Tehran's proposal aimed at ending the seven-month war. The content of the U.S. response was not disclosed, and officials did not confirm whether it constituted a rejection, despite U.S. President Donald Trump having rejected Iran's earlier proposal days prior.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the U.S. response to President Masoud Pezeshkian during a Cabinet meeting, as reported by government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani to the state-run IRNA news agency. President Pezeshkian affirmed Iran's commitment, stating, “We will make every effort to bring the agreement to fruition and will firmly stand up for the rights of the Iranian people. The agreement must now be based on a win-win strategy.”
The Cabinet meeting followed Araghchi's return from New York, where he attended last week's U.N. General Assembly. During his trip, Araghchi engaged in indirect talks with U.S. officials and met with Qatari and Pakistani mediators on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders. However, Araghchi and his delegation were ordered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to depart New York earlier than scheduled, according to two anonymous U.S. officials familiar with the decision. They left New York very early Tuesday.
Araghchi briefed the Cabinet on his New York trip, including Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Mohajerani stated had been conveyed through mediators. Last week, Araghchi had proposed reopening the strait within a week if the U.S. agreed to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, release frozen Iranian assets, and waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other stipulations.
Concurrently, the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday unveiled new sanctions targeting ten individuals and entities across Iran, Hong Kong, and Pakistan. These sanctions accuse them of being financial facilitators or enablers of Iran’s military supply chain, procuring weapons and weapon components for Iran’s defense ministry amidst the ongoing seven-month conflict with the U.S.
Iran's economy, already under severe strain before the war began in late February, has experienced a free fall since. The country’s currency plummeted to a record low on Tuesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging over 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar, reflecting the significant erosion of the Iranian economy due to the Middle East war. Medication prices have soared, with some treatments becoming scarce and more than tripling in price. Food and other goods have also seen skyrocketing prices, while unemployment has risen, and the currency has lost half its value.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who initially predicted the war would last only weeks, more recently stated he expects it to end after the Nov. 3 midterm elections in the U.S. He remarked, “It’s going to end very soon, one way or the other.” The war has evolved into an economic endurance test, with Iran attempting to drive up world energy prices through attacks on oil shipping routes, and the U.S. responding by blockading Iranian ports since June and imposing increasingly tough sanctions.
In a separate development on Wednesday, two men were executed in Iran for their involvement in violence during nationwide anti-government protests in January. The state-run IRNA news agency, citing the country's judiciary, reported that the men participated in unrest in Mashhad that resulted in the deaths of four security force members earlier this year. Their death sentences were upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court before being carried out Wednesday morning.
The unrest, which began on December 28 amid public anger over Iran’s collapsing currency and worsening economy, quickly spread across the country, with demonstrators increasingly calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Iranian authorities responded with a deadly crackdown. Rights groups claim thousands were killed and tens of thousands arrested, while Iranian authorities have reported a substantially lower death toll.
