WSJ: Trump rejects Iran’s seven-day truce as new strikes loom

Iran has proposed a seven-day plan to reopen the strategically important Strait of Hormuz and halt fighting in the wider Middle East, but hours later, The Wall Street Journal reported that US President Donald Trump had rejected the proposal.

The waterway, vital to global oil supplies, has remained at the center of the conflict between the United States and Iran, which has reached a stalemate after nearly seven months. New mediation efforts on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, however, had raised hopes of progress toward a possible agreement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff for talks on Tuesday and later outlined Tehran’s conditions for ending the war and reopening the shipping channel.

“Iran has conveyed to the United States, through Qatar, a concrete seven-day plan. If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened, and normal maritime passage restored within seven days,” Araghchi said at the UN.

“The choice now rests with the United States. Iran does not accept coercion, threats, or intimidation, and Iran will not surrender its sovereign rights under pressure.”

Within hours, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had rejected the proposal, citing US officials familiar with the matter. The report said the 80-year-old president was skeptical that Tehran would meet his demands and believed a renewed bombing campaign was likely. Reuters separately reported that it could not immediately confirm the Journal report.

Trump also posted an image on his Truth Social platform showing a map of the Strait of Hormuz with the waterway circled and labelled “Trump Strait.”

Earlier media reports said the Iranian proposal called for a seven-day cessation of all hostilities in the Middle East, including in Lebanon. It also reportedly envisaged the release of frozen Iranian assets estimated at at least $12 billion, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the US naval blockade of Iran.

Under the reported plan, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the seventh day of the truce.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview with CBS that the ceasefire “process will begin from the very day they accept it.”

“We had previously reached an agreement based on the MOU that was signed in Pakistan...if the United States agrees to proceed in that way, everything will return to the way it was before,” he added.

Hossein Mohebi, a spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, told AFP in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that ending hostilities in Yemen was also among Tehran’s demands.

The United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in June that was intended to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and launch talks on Iran’s nuclear programme.

The agreement later broke down, according to the account provided, after Iran fired on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz that it accused of deviating from an approved route through the waterway.

Iran requires ships to obtain authorization before passing through the strait, citing security and sovereignty concerns. The source said vessels that refuse to comply are regularly targeted, while the United States has periodically bombed Iranian coastal areas in retaliation.

By Tamilla Hasanova