As US President Donald Trump’s deadline on Iran looms, apprehensions have grown over Washington’s, and with it Tehran’s, next course of action in the West Asia conflict that began in late February.
Trump gave one of his most damning and ominous threats to Iran, saying in a Truth Social post that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. Iran replied with a threat of its own, saying that it will hit targets beyond the region if its civilian infrastructure is harmed.
With these threats and counter-threats, and apprehensions about the possibility of a nuclear strike by the US, it is pertinent to find out where the talks stand at the moment.
Status of US-Iran talks
According to multiple US-Israeli sources quoted by Axios, progress has been made in the past 24 hours in the negotiations between the US and Iran, though reaching a ceasefire deal by Donald Trump’s 8 PM ET deadline still looks like a long shot.
A US official said the thinking in the White House has shifted from “can we get there?” to “can we get there by 8 o’clock tonight?”
The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported that Iran had cut off direct communication due to Trump’s threats, while the New York Times reported that Iran was walking away from negotiations. Iran’s state-run Tehran Times denied the reports.
The problem, however, is that a failure to reach a deal by the 8 PM ET deadline, or at least make enough progress to convince Trump to extend it, could end up leading to an unprecedented escalation in the war.
According to the US and Israeli sources quoted by Axios, the key challenges at the moment are meeting Iran’s demand for a strong guarantee that Washington and Tel Aviv won’t just resume the war after a pause, and the slow pace of responses from the Iranian leadership due to the security situation.
Iran’s stance
Trusting the US with peace talks might be proving difficult for Iran, as many officials have been pointing out since the start of the war that Tehran was bombed while the negotiations were ongoing, both last year in June and this time in February.
Over the last two weeks, the US and Iran have been exchanging proposals and counter-proposals through Pakistani, Egyptian and Turkish mediators. US Vice President JD Vance, White House envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are all involved in the negotiations.
Witkoff also has a direct channel of communication with Iranian officials including foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
Iran sent a counter-proposal to the US via the mediators on Monday, which, according to Axios, was encouraging.
“The last proposal we got wasn’t really what we wanted, but it was a lot better than we expected,” a US official quoted in the report said.
