US President Donald Trump said that Vice President JD Vance’s outreach to Iran was about helping the country get medical supplies, after US media reported Vance had written to Tehran’s top security official to revive peace talks.
Iran has received a letter from Vance but it has not responded to it yet, the country’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Thursday, while adding that Tehran wants the US to meet its conditions and “any position that contradicts this framework is unacceptable.”
Also on Thursday, the US military’s senior officer overseeing the Middle East, Admiral Brad Cooper, met Trump at the White House to outline military options in Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials and other people with direct knowledge of the meeting.
Reporters could not immediately independently verify this report.
Vance sent the letter to Iranian Security Council chief Mohsen Rezaei in a bid to revive peace negotiations, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing US officials and people familiar with the matter. Reporters could not immediately verify the reports.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance sent the letter at Trump’s direction. When asked by reporters later on Wednesday if he directed Vance to reach out to Iran to restart peace negotiations, Trump said: “No.”
“What that is is they need help with medical supplies and various things. He (Vance) asked me what I thought. I said, if you want to do that, that’s okay. Basically, it’s getting supplies in to help people that are not well,” Trump told reporters.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter and Trump’s remark. Vance’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TEHRAN’S CONDITIONS
Iran’s parliament speaker said on Thursday that Tehran’s conditions had been repeatedly and clearly communicated to mediators and that progress can only be achieved if Iran’s seven conditions are met.
The “carrot-and-stick approach has no effect on Iran,” Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf added.
Conditions Iran says must be met before it will reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz shipping route include, among other demands, lifting the US blockade on Iranian ports, lifting US sanctions on Iranian oil exports and ending hostilities on all regional fronts.
The United States and Israel launched a war against Iran at the end of February. The US has also since imposed a naval blockade on Iran to starve it of oil export revenue and escalated efforts to economically isolate Iran.
Iran has long blamed US sanctions for hindering civilian access to medical supplies.
In an August letter to the UN Security Council, Iran accused the US of intentionally depriving civilians “of access to food, medicines, medical equipment, energy and other necessities, with grave consequences for their rights to life, health, food and a decent standard of living.”
Qatari mediators presented Iran with a new draft deal on Sunday to end the war, but a senior Iranian official said Doha had only put forward unacceptable ideas that did not amount to an offer.
The war’s impact on global energy costs has also weighed on support for Republican candidates and hurt Trump’s approval ratings ahead of the US midterm elections that decide control of Congress. Trump’s Republican Party holds a narrow majority in both chambers of Congress.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and David Brunnstrom;)
