Iran rejects US ceasefire plan, issues its own demands as strikes land across the Mideast

Iran on Wednes­day dis­missed an Amer­i­can plan to pause the war in the Mid­dle East and launched more at­tacks on Is­rael and Gulf Arab coun­tries, in­clud­ing an as­sault that sparked a huge fire at Kuwait In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Iran’s de­fi­ance came as Is­rael launched airstrikes on Tehran and as the Unit­ed States de­ployed para­troop­ers and more Marines to the re­gion.

Iran­ian state tele­vi­sion’s Eng­lish-lan­guage broad­cast­er quot­ed an anony­mous of­fi­cial as say­ing Iran re­ject­ed Amer­i­ca’s cease­fire pro­pos­al and has its own de­mands for an end to the fight­ing. “Iran will end the war when it de­cides to do so and when its own con­di­tions are met,” the hard­lin­er-con­trolled Press TV quot­ed the of­fi­cial as say­ing.

Ear­li­er, two of­fi­cials from Pak­istan, which trans­mit­ted the U.S. plan to Iran, de­scribed the 15-point pro­pos­al broad­ly, say­ing it ad­dressed sanc­tions re­lief, a roll­back of Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram, lim­its on mis­siles and re­open­ing the Strait of Hor­muz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped.

An Egypt­ian of­fi­cial in­volved in the me­di­a­tion ef­forts said the pro­pos­al al­so in­cludes re­stric­tions on Iran’s sup­port for armed groups. The of­fi­cials spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss de­tails not yet re­leased.

Some of those points were non­starters in ne­go­ti­a­tions be­fore the war: Iran has in­sist­ed it won’t dis­cuss its bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gram or its sup­port of re­gion­al mili­tias, which it views as key to its se­cu­ri­ty. And its abil­i­ty to con­trol pas­sage through the Strait of Hor­muz rep­re­sents one of its biggest strate­gic ad­van­tages.

Iran’s at­tacks on re­gion­al en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture along with its re­stric­tions on the strait have sent oil prices sky­rock­et­ing, putting pres­sure on the U.S. to find a way to end the choke­hold and calm mar­kets.

More US troops are on the way to the Mid­dle East

At least 1,000 troops from the 82nd Air­borne Di­vi­sion will be sent to the Mideast in the com­ing days, three peo­ple with knowl­edge of the plans told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss sen­si­tive mil­i­tary plans.

The para­troop­ers are trained to jump in­to hos­tile or con­test­ed ar­eas to se­cure key ter­ri­to­ry and air­fields.

The Pen­ta­gon is al­so in the process of send­ing about 5,000 more Marines, trained in am­phibi­ous as­saults, and thou­sands of sailors to the re­gion.

Diplo­mat­ic ef­forts face ma­jor chal­lenges

Me­di­a­tors are push­ing for pos­si­ble in-per­son talks be­tween the Ira­ni­ans and the Amer­i­cans, per­haps as soon as Fri­day in Pak­istan, the Egypt­ian and Pak­istani of­fi­cials said.

Trump has said the U.S. is “in ne­go­ti­a­tions right now” and that the par­tic­i­pants in­clud­ed spe­cial en­voy Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kush­n­er, Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio and Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance. He has not dis­closed who from Iran they are in con­tact with, but said “the oth­er side, I can tell you, they’d like to make a deal.”

Press TV cit­ed an Iran­ian five-point plan for a cease­fire com­ing from the of­fi­cial who re­ject­ed the US pro­pos­al. That plan in­clud­ed a halt to killings of its of­fi­cials, means to make sure no oth­er war is waged against it, repa­ra­tions for the war, the end of hos­til­i­ties and Iran’s “ex­er­cise of sov­er­eign­ty over the Strait of Hor­muz.”

Those mea­sures, par­tic­u­lar­ly repa­ra­tions and its con­tin­ued choke­hold over the Strait of Hor­muz, like­ly will be un­ac­cept­able to the White House.

While Iran and Oman both have ter­ri­to­ry in the strait, its nar­row ship­ping chan­nels are viewed as in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters through which all ships can trav­el.

Is­raeli of­fi­cials, who have been ad­vo­cat­ing for Trump to con­tin­ue the war against Iran, were sur­prised by the sub­mis­sion of a U.S. cease­fire plan, ac­cord­ing to a per­son who was briefed on the con­tours of the pro­pos­al and spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to speak pub­licly.

Any talks be­tween the U.S. and Iran would face mon­u­men­tal chal­lenges. It’s not clear who in Iran’s gov­ern­ment has the au­thor­i­ty to ne­go­ti­ate — or would be will­ing to, as Is­rael has vowed to con­tin­ue killing the coun­try’s lead­ers.

Iran re­mains high­ly sus­pi­cious of the Unit­ed States, which twice un­der the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has at­tacked dur­ing high-lev­el diplo­mat­ic talks, in­clud­ing with the Feb. 28 strikes that start­ed the cur­rent war.

Is­rael launch­es new strikes on Iran — and al­so comes un­der at­tack

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said Wednes­day af­ter­noon it had com­plet­ed sev­er­al waves of airstrikes in Tehran. The army al­so said that as part of its strikes a day ear­li­er it tar­get­ed an Iran­ian sub­ma­rine de­vel­op­ment cen­tre in Is­fa­han.

“There have been some days when the bomb­ings are so in­tense you can’t do any­thing,” a 26-year-old grad­u­ate stu­dent in Tehran said, adding his friends most­ly stayed at home. He spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause of se­cu­ri­ty fears.

Mis­sile alert sirens sound­ed mul­ti­ple times in Is­rael as Iran and the Lebanon-based mil­i­tant group Hezbol­lah launched at­tacks. Iran-backed Hezbol­lah has fired rock­ets in­to north­ern Is­rael around the clock since the war be­gan, dis­rupt­ing the lives of hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple.

Iran al­so kept up the pres­sure on its Gulf Arab neigh­bours. Sau­di Ara­bia’s De­fense Min­istry said it had de­stroyed at least eight drones in its oil-rich East­ern Province, and mis­sile alert sirens sound­ed in Bahrain. Kuwait said it shot down mul­ti­ple drones but that one hit a fu­el tank at Kuwait In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Iran’s death toll has passed 1,500, its Health Min­istry has said. Is­rael says 20 peo­ple have died in the war, in­clud­ing two sol­diers in Lebanon. At least 13 U.S. mil­i­tary mem­bers have been killed, along with more than a dozen civil­ians in the oc­cu­pied West Bank and Gulf Arab states.

Au­thor­i­ties say near­ly 1,100 peo­ple have died in Lebanon, where Is­rael has tar­get­ed Hezbol­lah. In Iraq, where Iran­ian-sup­port­ed mil­i­tant groups have al­so en­tered the con­flict, 80 mem­bers of the se­cu­ri­ty forces have been killed, a top se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er, Khalid al-Yaqoubi, said.

En­er­gy prices fall back but re­main high

The news of po­ten­tial ne­go­ti­a­tions drove down the price of oil. Brent crude oil, the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, has neared $120 a bar­rel dur­ing the con­flict but was trad­ing around $100 Wednes­day. It is still up around 35% from the start of the war.

Econ­o­mists and lead­ers have warned of far-reach­ing ef­fects if en­er­gy prices re­main high — from ris­ing prices on food and oth­er ba­sics to high­er rates for mort­gages and au­to loans.

Iran has al­lowed a small num­ber of ships through the Strait of Hor­muz, but has said no ships from the U.S., Is­rael or coun­tries seen as linked to them can pass. —DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP)

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Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL, MIKE CORDER, MU­NIR AHMED and AAMER MAD­HANI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Aamer Mad­hani re­port­ed from Wash­ing­ton, Mike Corder from The Hague, Nether­lands and Mu­nir Ahmed from Is­lam­abad. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Samy Magdy in Cairo, David Ris­ing in Bangkok, Na­tal­ie Melz­er in Tel Aviv, Is­rael, Qas­sim Ab­dul-Zahra in Bagh­dad, and E. Ed­uar­do Castil­lo in Bei­jing con­tributed to this re­port.