Iranian leaders raised the conditions for negotiations with the United States and issued fresh warnings of a wider military response on Wednesday, even as signs persisted that Tehran was leaving room for diplomacy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Iran with US envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday and offered Moscow’s help, shortly after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Tehran as Russia seeks a role in efforts to end the Iran-US conflict.
Iranians seeking German work and vocational-training visas protested outside the German Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday over lengthy delays in securing appointments, with some saying they had already lost job offers or training places while waiting.
Renewed efforts to avert another war with the United States drew conflicting responses in Tehran, with hardliners questioning mediators’ motives while officials defended keeping diplomatic channels open.
Washington and Tehran may still reach a limited deal, but fundamental disagreements leave open the prospect of renewed escalation, analysts told Iran International, with the period after elections in Israel and the United States emerging as a potential turning point.
Investment in trade routes linking Asia and Europe through Central Asia and the Caucasus is putting pressure on Iran’s ambitions to become a major transit hub, with neighboring countries developing transport and digital networks that bypass Iranian territory.
A senior Revolutionary Guards official has compared Iran’s conflict with the United States to a world war that could reshape the global order, reflecting a mindset in Tehran that appears increasingly resistant to backing down despite the risk of renewed US attacks.
Despite signs of movement in negotiations with Washington, Tehran is showing little inclination to ease military pressure, pursuing diplomacy while signaling that renewed US attacks could trigger a broader regional response.
The US blockade and tighter sanctions enforcement are cutting into Iran’s oil income and targeting financial networks that sustain the Islamic Republic, but may still fall short of forcing Tehran into concessions, experts said at an Iran International town hall in Washington.
Tehran has seized on protests by French high school students to accuse Paris of repression, seeking to obscure its own treatment of young Iranians by turning the language of human rights against one of its Western critics.
Iran has reached a preliminary understanding to allocate land at Chabahar to Taliban-run Afghanistan to build infrastructure for moving its goods to the sea, an Iranian lawmaker said.
Rhetoric is hardening on both sides of the Iran-US standoff, with even Iranian analysts traditionally optimistic about diplomacy warning that relations are slipping back to “square one” as military and economic pressure intensifies.
Tehran media see diplomacy with Washington as increasingly precarious but not yet dead, with the two sides far apart over the sequencing of any deal and the window for compromise appearing to narrow.
US President Donald Trump said renewed large-scale bombing of Iran after the November midterm elections was "possible," while rejecting Tehran's latest ceasefire proposal as insufficient, according to an interview with TIME published on Thursday.
Continued contacts between Tehran and Washington, mediated by Qatar and Pakistan, have intensified debate inside Iran over whether diplomacy can still produce a deal despite President Donald Trump’s rejection of Tehran’s latest proposal and what should happen if it fails.
Iran’s receipt of Washington’s response to its seven-point proposal for ending the Strait of Hormuz crisis has sharpened divisions in Tehran over whether to pursue further compromise or intensify pressure on the United States.
Iran said on Tuesday it is awaiting a US response to its proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, as regional oil flows continued to recover and the rial sank past 2.5 million to the dollar.
US President Donald Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal for a swift reopening of the Strait of Hormuz may say less about Washington’s opposition to a deal than about its changing assessment of Tehran’s most important bargaining chip.
Iran says a negotiated settlement remains the only way out of the war and is awaiting a formal US response to its latest proposal, despite President Donald Trump saying he has rejected Tehran’s offer.
Iran will not make concessions over its nuclear program even if the United States accepts Tehran’s proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported Friday citing a senior Iranian official.
Talks between Iranian and US diplomats have continued in New York despite increasingly harsh rhetoric from both capitals, but the emerging dispute is less over whether to negotiate than over who must move first.
President Masoud Pezeshkian’s UN speech won unusual praise across Iran’s political establishment Thursday, but emerging details of negotiations with the United States could soon test the president’s careful balancing act.