Iran said on Monday it wanted a lasting end to the war with the United States(US) and Israel, and pushed back against pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while US President Donald Trump warned the country could be “taken out” if it did not meet his Tuesday night deadline to reach a deal.
Responding to a US proposal through mediator Pakistan, Tehran rejected a ceasefire and said a permanent end to the war was necessary, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The Iranian response consisted of 10 clauses, including an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting of sanctions and reconstruction, the agency added.
Trump, who has threatened to rain “hell” on Tehran if it did not make a deal by 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday (midnight GMT) to open the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global energy supplies, rejected the Iranian response and said his deadline was final.
At a news conference, Trump said Iran could be “taken out” in one night “and that night might be tomorrownight,” referring to Tuesday. He vowed to destroy Iranian power plants and bridges, brushing off concerns that such actions would be a war crime or alienate Iran’s 93 million people.
Without an agreement with Tehran, Trump said: “Every bridge in Iran will be decimated” by midnight EDT (0400 GMT) on Wednesday and “every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again.”
Iran’s top joint military command in turn said Trump was “delusional” and called Trump’s warnings “rude, arrogant rhetoric and baseless threats,” according to a statement by spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaqari on state TV.
After Trump’s latest comments, Iran’s deputy sports minister, Alireza Rahimi, called on artists and athletes to form human chains at power plants across the country on Tuesday 7 April.
“We will stand hand in hand to say: Attacking public infrastructure is a war crime,” Rahimi said on X.
Independent experts have also said strikes on civilian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges would constitute war crimes. Trump said Iranians are “willing to suffer that in order to have freedom” and the U.S. has intercepted messages asking for bombings.
After the US and Israel attacked on February 28, Iran effectively closed Hormuz, a conduit for about a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply. The waterway’s stranglehold on the global economy has proved a powerful bargaining chip, and Tehran is reluctant to relinquish it too easily.
The Pakistani-brokered framework for ending the war proposed an immediate ceasefire, followed by talks on a broader peace settlement to be concluded within 15 to 20 days, a source aware of the proposals said.
Iran also threatened to avenge a US-Israeli attack early Monday on Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, one of the country’s top science institutions, where Iran’s WANA news agency said an artificial intelligence data centre and other facilities were damaged.
“Aggressors will see our might” in response to the Sharif bombing, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on X. Iran’s science minister has accused the United States and Israel of attacking some 30 universities in the war.
