After Tehran submitted a fresh proposal for negotiations with the United States, President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with it, shattering any hope for breaking the deadlock in efforts to end the war.
The proposal was handed over to mediator Pakistan on Thursday. After receiving the proposal, Trump said he is not sure whether there will be a deal.
"Just had a conversation with Iran. I am not happy. Iran has made strides, but not enough," he said, adding that negotiations were taking place by phone.
Though the details of the proposal were not revealed, reports suggest that Iran has no plans of abandoning its nuclear and missile programmes. Axios reported that Trump wanted in the proposal was to insert the nuclear issue back into the draft text. It added that one of the amendments was that Iran should commit not to try to move any enriched uranium out of its bombed nuclear facilities or restart activities at those sites.
The second round of talks in Islamabad were cancelled after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived for the negotiations alone while Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf skipped the meet. Following this, Trump cancelled the trip of his adviser Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to Islamabad.
Before the latest proposal, Trump had claimed that Iran was dying to make a deal to end the war.
When asked about the latest negotiations, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital: "We do not detail private diplomatic conversations." She added that Trump has been clear that Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon.