Key Takeaways:
- In an Axios phone interview Sept. 27, President Trump said he expects talks with Tehran as soon as the coming week—possibly indirectly via Qatar from Sept. 28—but rejected Iran’s Hormuz-reopening offer as “not the deal that I want” and a weaker version of last year’s terms.
- He told Axios on Sept. 25 that Iran offered because “they are losing so badly”; Witkoff and Kushner met Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi at UNGA with no reported breakthrough.
- Araqchi, via IRIB, repeated conditions: unfreeze assets, lift oil sanctions, end the U.S. naval blockade. The Wall Street Journal said Trump is weighing more air strikes after the Nov. 3 midterms amid high fuel prices—that is a report of options, not an announced campaign.
US President Donald Trump said he expects negotiations with Tehran to resume in the upcoming week, despite having rejected a proposal put forward by Iran days earlier.
“They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make,” Trump said in a phone interview with Axios on September 27 without providing specifics.
“It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago,” he added.
Trump on September 25 rejected a proposal made hours earlier by Tehran to reopen the important Strait of Hormuz, saying that Iran made the offer because “they are losing so badly.”
“They overplayed their hand,” Trump told Axios.
Axios, citing sources familiar with the talks, said indirect talks could resume as early as September 28 through Qatari mediators.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met last week with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, although no breakthroughs were reported.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump is considering resuming air strikes on Iran following the November 3 midterm elections amid growing public opposition to the war, which has sent fuel prices surging in the US and around the globe.
Iran on September 27 said its demands for reopening the Strait of Hormuz had not changed – including the release of frozen Iranian assets, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil, and an end to the US naval blockade.
“Our conditions are clear, and any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz is contingent upon these conditions being fulfilled. We will not back down from them,” Araqchi said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.
