•Trump puts forward a 15-point plan •Iranian military rejects Trump’s plan
By Nkiruka Nnorom with agency reports
US President, Donald Trump, yesterday put forward a 15-point plan to see to the end of the war he started against Iran three weeks ago, alongside Israel.
The plan includes the pledge that nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow must be destroyed.
But Iran rejected the proposal, mocked Trump’s purported ceasefire and listed its own proposal
However, Washington sent Tehran the plan to end the crisis in the Middle East, highlighting the White House’s eagerness to find an offramp from the war as it wrestles with its economic fallout.
It also called for transparency and oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, over activities in Tehran, as well as the promise that the regime would abandon the use of armed proxies in the region, and stop its funding and arming of regional allies.
Iran would have to dismantle its existing nuclear capabilities that have already been accumulated, and commit to never striving to achieve nuclear weapons again.
Under the plan, all enriched material must be handed over to the IAEA, and that no nuclear material will be enriched on Iranian soil.
Iran rejects Trump’s proposal, lists own demand
Iran has responded to Donald Trump’s 15-point peace plan with a list of its own demands, including calling for the closure of US bases in the Middle East and a new toll for Strait of Hormuz shipping.
According to Wall Street Journal, a US official called the demands ‘ridiculous and unrealistic’.
Iran listed other demands to include a new order for the Strait of Hormuz that would allow Tehran collect fees from ships that transit the Persian Gulf channel, as Egypt does now with the Suez Canal.
The regime wants it to be guaranteed that the conflict wouldn’t restart and an end to Israel’s attacks on the Iran-backed Lebanese militia, Hezbollah.
It has also demanded a lifting of all sanctions on Iran, and for the country to retain its missile programme, with no negotiations to limit it.
Also, Press TV, the Iranian state broadcaster’s English-language outlet, quoted a senior political security official as saying Tehran had reviewed and rejected the proposal put forward by the US to end the war.
The official said any cessation of hostilities would only occur on Iran’s own terms and timeline, adding that the country would not allow Donald Trump dictate when the conflict would end.
“Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met,” the official was quoted as saying, adding that Tehran considers the US proposal as “excessive.”
Tehran mocks Trump’s ceasefire efforts
Meanwhile, Iranian military spokesperson, Lt Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari, has mocked US attempts at a ceasefire deal, insisting Americans were only negotiating with themselves, Associated Press reported.
In a prerecorded video aired yesterday on state television, Lt. Col. Zolfaghari claimed the US’s strategic power had turned into “strategic failure”.
The one claiming to be a global superpower would have already got out of this mess if it could. Don’t dress up your defeat as an agreement. Your era of empty promises has come to an end. Have your internal conflicts reached the point where you are negotiating with yourselves?
“Our first and last word has been the same from day one, and it will stay that way: Someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you. Not now, not ever, “ Zolfaghari said.
Pentagon orders more missiles for Iran war
Meanwhile, the US Defense Department announced yesterday agreements with defense contractors to put missile production “on a wartime footing” as the Mideast war leads to rapid use of munition stocks.
The extensive use of interceptor missiles by the United States, Israel and the Gulf states to counter Iranian retaliatory attacks has raised concerns about stockpile sizes.
In the first deal, Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems agreed to a fourfold increase in production of “seeker heads,” a key component for the THAAD anti-missile system that has seen significant use in the Middle East.
The goal is to put the “industrial base on a wartime footing,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
At the end of January, Lockheed Martin had already announced an acceleration of its THAAD production from around 100 a year to about 400 annually within a few years.
A second deal with Lockheed Martin will accelerate production of Precision Strike Missiles, or PrSM, tactical ballistic missiles used for the first time against Iran. They succeed the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS.
Lockheed Martin confirmed the order, saying in a statement it builds on a previous $4.94 billion contract award from the US Army last year.
In a third deal, Honeywell Aerospace agreed to boost the production of “critical components for America’s munitions stockpile,” including navigation systems, the Pentagon said.
Honeywell said it included a multi-year investment of $500 million to upgrade its production capabilities to “rapidly increase the manufacturing of critical defense technologies.”
It has committed to manufacturing more navigation systems as well as actuators for missile maneuverability and electronic warfare solutions, particularly for AMRAAM medium-range air-to-air missiles with radar guidance.
M-East war out of control – UN chief
Meanwhile, the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr Antonio Guterres, said yesterday “the war in the Middle East is “out of control,” warning of more human and economic pain the longer fighting goes on.
“The conflict has broken past the limits even leaders thought imaginable. The world is staring down the barrel of a wider war, a rising tide of human suffering, and a deeper global economic shock. This has gone too far.
“The Gaza model must not be replicated in Lebanon,” Guterres told reporters.