Axios has turned into something of a White House propaganda machine in this war but this report is more cautious. It says that the US and a group of regional mediators are waiting for a response from Iran about holding peace talks on Thursday.
The problem for Iran is that last month, it held two rounds of talks with the US and put some reportedly-strong proposals on the table only for the US and Israel to launch a surprise attack. That’s hardly the kind of lesson they’re going to forget.
Since then, leaders have said they would only engage in talks after a ceasefire. At the same time, the White House says that Iran’s remaining leaders are in fact already talking and have agreed to some of the things they’ve proposed.
What the Axios report says:
The US has shared with Israel its 15-point plan to end the war Netanyahu is concerned a deal will fall well short of Israel’s objectiveIsraeli leaders were skeptical Iran had actually offered the concession the US claimedJD Vance would be involved in talksSome Iranian officials, meanwhile, claim Trump is just trying to calm the markets and buy time for his military plans The US told the Israelis that Iran had agreed to give up its 450kg stockpile of 60%-enriched uraniumIt’s not clear if the Iranian parliamentary speaker would represent IranUS and Israeli officials are planning for another two to three weeks of war regardless of whether talks talk place
I don’t think this tells us much new. We know that Trump wants to make a deal but there’s no sign that Iran does, aside from Trump’s word.
Meanwhile, Trump also just hit the wires:
Iran has no leaders leftWe’re talking to the right people, they want to make a dealHaving tremendous success in IranIran is talking senseIran has agreed they will never have a nuclear weaponWe are roaming free over TehranOne shot to the right spot will destroy their large power plant”Iran gave us a gift and the gift arrived today. It was a big gift worth a lot of money. It told me that we’re negotiating with the right people. It was a gift related to oil and gas.”We’ll have control of anything we wantWe’ve won this warI think we’re going to end it, I can’t tell you for sureSaudi, UAE and Qatar have been excellent on Iran
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.