Iran says US must accept peace plan or face 'failure'

Iran's chief negotiator said Tuesday that Washington must accept Tehran's latest peace plan or face failure, after US President Donald Trump warned the truce in the Middle East war was on the brink of collapse.

The war, which erupted more than two months ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, has spread throughout the Middle East and roiled the global economy despite a ceasefire, impacting hundreds of millions worldwide.

Both sides have refused to make concessions and repeatedly threatened to resume fighting, but neither appears willing to return to all-out war.

"There is no alternative but to accept the rights of the Iranian people as laid out in the 14-point proposal. Any other approach will be completely inconclusive; nothing but one failure after another," Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X.

"The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it."

Iran sent its proposal in response to an earlier US plan, details of which remain limited. Media reports have said the American plan involved a one-page memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the fighting and establishing a framework for negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme.

Iran's foreign ministry said its response called for ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, halting the US naval blockade on Iranian ports and securing the release of Iranian assets frozen abroad under longstanding sanctions.

But Trump slammed Tehran's reply as "TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE", saying the US would enjoy a "complete victory" over Iran and the truce that has halted fighting for over a month was on its last legs.

The war of words has unnerved people in Iran who do not know what the coming months will bring.

"We are just trying to dig our nails into anything that could help us survive. The future is so uncertain and we are just living day to day," Maryam, a 43-year-old painter from the capital Tehran, told Paris-based journalists.

"We are trying to find a way to continue. Keeping hope is very difficult right now."

Trump's angry reaction to Iran's counter-offer sparked a spike in oil prices and dashed hopes that a deal could be quickly negotiated to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping.

Iran is restricting maritime traffic in the waterway and has been setting up a payment mechanism to charge tolls for crossing ships, sparking a global energy crisis.

"The energy supply shock that began in the first quarter is the largest the world has ever experienced," the CEO and president of Saudi oil giant Aramco, Amin Nasser, told investors.

US officials have stressed it would be "unacceptable" for Tehran to control the strait, which usually carries about a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas.

Trump told Fox News that he was considering reviving a short-lived US operation to guide oil tankers and commercial ships through Hormuz, but that he had not yet taken a final decision.

Officials, traders and analysts are now looking to Beijing, where Trump lands this week to meet President Xi Jinping, the first visit by a US president since Trump made a trip in 2017.

Iran will be keeping a close eye on Trump's visit, where he is expected to press Xi -- whose country is a major buyer of Iranian oil.

The maritime standoff has also left the world facing a shortage of fertiliser -- much of which comes from Gulf ports -- and risks food supplies for tens of millions of people.

Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), told AFP there were just a few weeks left to avert a potentially "massive humanitarian crisis" that could force 45 million more people into hunger.

On another front of the war in Lebanon, Israeli strikes on a town in the country's south killed six people and wounded seven others, state media said Tuesday, as fighting continued despite a ceasefire agreement.

Israel has intensified its attacks in south Lebanon as it trades fire with Iran-backed Hezbollah even after a truce on 17 April between Israel and Lebanon that aimed to halt the fighting.

More than 2,800 people have been killed in Lebanon since the country was dragged into the Middle East war on 2 March, according to health authorities.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said Tuesday his group's weapons were not part of a third round of upcoming negotiations between Lebanon and Israel this week, reiterating threats against Israel.

"We will not surrender and we will continue to defend Lebanon and its people, however long it takes and however great the sacrifices," he said in a written statement.

"We will not abandon the battlefield and we will turn it into hell for Israel."