Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has dismissed media reports about a possible meeting between Iran’s top security official and the US vice president, describing them as baseless.
“These speculations and media reports are entirely baseless, and there is no plan for such a meeting,” the Iranian foreign minister told IRNA on Tuesday.
Media reports circulated on Monday claimed that US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei would meet in Doha, Qatar, as part of diplomatic efforts to end the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on February 28.
Only diplomacy will end war
Araghchi said US President Donald Trump should have realized much earlier that he had achieved none of his objectives by waging war against Iran and that he would not achieve them either.
It will not be long before Trump also realizes that the path of sanctions and economic pressure was wrong, Araghchi said.
“The war on Iran will end neither through military action nor through increased sanctions. The only way forward is to use the language of respect and diplomacy, while meeting Iran’s demands and the conditions set out in the two-day proposal that remains on the table,” he added.
After meeting Qatar’s prime minister in Washington on Monday, Trump described the US-Israeli war on Iran as “effectively over” militarily, but acknowledged that the “status quo” would involve continuing the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, as well as the so-called Task Force Iron Gate, which seeks to cut off trade by land and through the Caspian Sea.
Trump and his fellow Republicans suffered a historic defeat in last week’s midterm elections, losing control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives to the Democrats. The war on Iran and rising fuel prices driven by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz were among voters’ main concerns. Trump and Vice President Vance later attributed public discontent to the war, with Trump also referring to “a big dislike” of Israel in the United States, where the regime is widely blamed for dragging Washington into the conflict with Iran.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in early March as part of its defensive measures against the US-Israeli war of aggression. Tehran maintains that the war will end and the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to normal navigation within two days only after its demands are met. These include lifting the maritime blockade and economic sanctions, releasing Iranian assets frozen by the US, and ending hostilities on all fronts across the region.
Source: IRNA