Iran says it is ready for a ‘doomsday’ war as Trump rejects Hormuz plan
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is prepared for a “doomsday” war but still pursuing diplomacy, a day after President Trump publicly rejected Iran’s plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
What we know: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Monday that Tehran is prepared for a “doomsday” or “apocalyptic” war with the United States while still trying to keep a diplomatic path open, The Independent reported.
“We are ready to negotiate as much as we are ready to face any challenge ... We stand firm in the face of any aggression against us, even if it comes to a doomsday war,” Araghchi said, according to The Independent. He also said there was “no reason why we should go back to diplomacy” from Iran’s perspective, but that he was “still trying diplomacy because I think we shouldn’t miss any chance for peace.”
The Hormuz proposal: Iran stuck to its seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and said it will not soften its conditions, The Japan Times reported, citing Bloomberg. Under the proposal Iran outlined at the U.N. General Assembly last week, the United States would release frozen Iranian funds, lift sanctions, and end its naval blockade; Iran would reopen the strait and return to nuclear talks within a week.
President Donald Trump publicly rejected the plan on Saturday. “They want to make a deal to open the Hormuz strait immediately because they’re losing so badly,” he said, claiming the United States was “winning tremendously” and had “total control of the Hormuz strait,” The Independent reported.
What Trump and U.S. officials are saying: In an Axios interview on Sunday summarized by The Japan Times, Trump said Iran’s conditions were something Washington might have agreed to about a year ago, that Tehran had overplayed its hand, and that he still expects negotiations to resume this week even though he rejected the latest proposal.
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Washington rejected the offer because Iranian negotiators “were asking for everything up front with a promise that they would then talk,” The Independent reported. Waltz added that the president is “just not confident that the Iranians are coming in good faith and that we will truly negotiate the end of their nuclear program.”
What is still unsettled: Despite Trump’s public “no,” Araghchi said late Saturday via state broadcaster IRIB that mediators Qatar and Pakistan had not yet delivered a definitive U.S. response, The Japan Times reported. The war began in late February; shipping through Hormuz remains sharply reduced while both sides argue over the next diplomatic move.
What this means: Tehran is pairing a hard line — readiness for an “apocalyptic” fight — with insistence that diplomacy remains possible on its stated terms. Until mediators deliver a clear U.S. answer, or either side revises its conditions, the strait stays contested and the path out of the war stays murky.