US dismisses Iran's Hormuz proposal as 'cynical' as Trump expects more talks

US President Donald Trump has said that he anticipates his envoys will take part in negotiations with Iran in the coming days, while adding that Tehran has yet to offer acceptable terms to resolve the ongoing conflict.“I expect more talks with Iran (this week),” Trump told US news websiteAxioson Sunday in an interview, adding, "They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make.

It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago.

They overplayed their hand.”Asked whether Washington is considering resuming military strikes against Iran, Trump said the option remains active.Non-starterA top US official dismissed a proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz presented by Iran as “cynical” and indicated it was a non-starter for Washington.Iran’s truce plan, announced by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at the United Nations earlier this week, calls for the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and an end to the US naval blockade in order for the key waterway central to the world’s energy supplies to be opened.“This was, I think, a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable,” US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said on Sunday in an interview withNBC.“To ask for the release of the blockade, the sanctions, international sanctions, and access to billions in assets just to talk.”Trump rejected the deal on Saturday, stating that Iranian leaders wanted the deal because “they are losing so badly.”“I think it’s kind of common sense that the president doesn’t have a lot of confidence this time after we just tried a few months ago, but at the end of the day, of course, the president, this has to end this in some type of arrangement,” Waltz said.“But he’s going to leave all options on the table to get there.”In the meantime, Trump said the US military is actively assisting the movement of petroleum shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, maintaining that tanker traffic reached record levels over the weekend.He said that more than 20 million barrels of crude transited through the chokepoint, marking the highest volume recorded since the outbreak of hostilities.Renewed military attacksSpeaking onNBCshortly after, Araghchi denounced what he described as “old, unproved accusations” made by Waltz.“We are ready to open the strait if certain things are done by the US, and these certain things are not new and have not come from the space,” he said.“These are our rights that we want to be respected.”Araghchi also toldNBCthat Iran is ready to negotiate with the US but “fully prepared” to respond to renewed military attacks.He struck a pessimistic tone regarding the prospect of a deal.“There is also always hope for diplomacy, but we have no reason, to be honest with you, to come back to diplomacy and engage with this administration once again because of their behaviour in the past two years,” he said.