Iran floats new initiative via Pakistan amid stalled US talks
Iran delivered a new proposal for peace talks with the US via mediator Pakistan, with negotiations between the two sides frozen despite a weeks-long ceasefire.
According to a report by IRNA on Friday, the text of the proposal was handed over to Islamabad on Thursday evening.
The war, launched by the United States and Israel with a vast wave of surprise strikes on February 28 has been on hold since April 8, but only one failed round of direct talks has taken place between Iranian and US representatives.
In the meantime, Iran has maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz while the United States has imposed a counterblockade on Iranian ports.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that US President Donald Trump had told security officials to prepare for the blockade to last months, causing oil prices to spike.
Despite the failure to negotiate an end to the war, the ceasefire has held.
On Friday, Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said, "The Islamic Republic has never shied away from negotiations.”
Ejei, however, said, "We certainly do not accept imposition," in a video shared by the Judiciary's Mizan Online website.
Tehran, though, does not want a return to war, he said.
"We do not welcome war in any way; we do not want war, we do not want its continuation."
Since the failure of the first round of the negotiations in Pakistan, regional countries have been trying to get the US and Iran to the second round of negotiations.
Iran refused to participate in the second round due to the US violation of a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire by imposing a blockade on Iran’s ports.
Iranian officials have also blamed the US side for putting forward excessive demands and shifting its position at the negotiating table for the failure of the first negotiations.
Washington, meanwhile, is gripped by a legalistic debate over whether Trump had passed a deadline for requesting congressional approval for his war with Iran.
Administration officials, including defense secretary Pete Hegseth, insisted that the ceasefire meant that the clock was paused on a 60-day deadline requiring the president to seek war powers authorization from Congress.