Iran’s seven conditions include Middle East ceasefire
Iran’s IRNA state news agency reported Monday that the country’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly had no plans for negotiations with the United States, citing an unnamed source close to the group. The statement directly contradicted President Donald Trump’s account to Axios one day earlier that he expected more negotiations to resume soon. Trump’s expectation came a day after he publicly rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days.
According to IRNA, “Iran’s views and positions were conveyed clearly and explicitly to the US side… via a Qatari mediator.” IRNA added that the Iranian delegation would return to Tehran on Tuesday.
Axios reported that indirect talks mediated by Qatar could take place as early as Monday, less than a week after a separate round of discussions between US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. That earlier session ended without a reported position shift on either side.
Iran says it has presented seven conditions for ending the conflict and reopening the strait, all of which Trump rejected on Saturday. The demands include a seven-day ceasefire across the Middle East — including in Lebanon, where Iran’s ally Hezbollah is regularly bombarded by Israel — the unfreezing of Iranian foreign assets, the lifting of US sanctions on Iran’s oil sector, and an end to the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The Strait of Hormuz lies at the heart of a conflict that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Following that attack, Tehran placed a chokehold on the waterway, and Washington responded with a blockade of Iranian ports. Roughly 20% of the world’s oil and gas flowed through the strait before the war.
The Monday IRNA statement did not address whether Iran had formally rejected new talks or was merely confirming that none had been scheduled during the General Assembly session. No party had reconciled the two accounts as of publication.
In other developments
The same Guardian live blog reported several additional developments on Monday across domestic and international policy.
The Trump administration planned to release new fuel economy standards that would relax regulatory requirements for automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and light trucks. Trump said on his Truth Social account on Saturday that the less stringent mileage requirements would “take the waste out of building cars in America” and save families “thousands on a new, beautiful and safe car,” while boosting US auto production.
Attorney General Todd Blanche argued on Sunday that the administration was permitted to ban three news outlets from the White House because “it is a privilege and not a right to be there.” Appearing on ABC News’s This Week during the second week of the White House’s dispute over press credentialing and access, Blanche said the administration took the decision to ban CNN, MS Now, and Politico beginning on 19 September because the president was “sick and tired” of what he considered to be those outlets’ inaccurate reporting.
Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and frequent Trump critic, said on Sunday that Trump “made a colossal mistake” by supporting Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in the Texas Senate Republican primary. Tillis made the comments during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. Paxton defeated Cornyn in the May primary.
The United States and China released reciprocal lists on Monday of products worth about $30 billion each that will see tariff cuts, in a deal expected to boost bilateral trade. The details came days after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Trump in Washington in his first state visit to the US since 2015.
Trump justified the pending US arms sale to Taiwan to Xi by downplaying it as just one of many sales Washington makes around the world, and asked Xi if he would be in the market for US arms, Trump’s ambassador to China said on Sunday.
House Democrats are preparing a vast oversight agenda that includes investigations of Trump, his family, and his administration if the party sweeps control of the chamber from Republicans in the November elections. The undertaking spans several House committees.