Ball in US court, Iran says it is ready for talks or confrontation

Iran said Saturday that it was up to the United States whether to pursue a negotiated settlement or to return to open war, but that Tehran was ready for either outcome.

"Now the ball is in the United States' court to choose the path of diplomacy or the continuation of a confrontational approach," deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi told diplomats in Tehran, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

"Iran, with the aim of securing its national interests and security, is prepared for both paths," he said.

Earlier, Iran has handed Washington a new proposal for ending the war, offering hints of compromise in a bid to revive talks to end a standoff that is proving costly for its economy, reported Wall Street Journal on Saturday

The two sides remain far apart, however, on the substantive issues of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear programme, people familiar with the matter said, an indication negotiations will continue to be fraught.

“They want to make a deal, but I’m not satisfied with it,” President Donald Trump told reporters Friday. “We’ll see what happens.”

The new Iranian proposal takes a step toward the US by offering to discuss Tehran’s conditions for opening the Strait of Hormuz at the same time as US guarantees to end its attacks and unwind its blockade of Iranian ports, people familiar with the details said.

Iran previously wanted the US to drop its blockade as a precondition for talks, and agree to terms for ending the war before discussions on the future management of the strait and its nuclear programme.

The new proposal then calls for discussing the issues around Iran’s nuclear file in exchange for US sanctions relief.

Iran has indicated to mediators that it would be ready to sit down for talks in Pakistan by early next week if Washington is open to the new proposal.

“I think it aligns everyone’s incentives, because both the US and Iran would get some limited economic relief, and you put off issues that have proven much more difficult and time-consuming,” said Richard Nephew, a former senior US negotiator with Tehran now with Columbia University.

Iranian state media confirmed the country had submitted a new proposal to mediators and said it is willing to return to diplomacy if the US tones down its rhetoric.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the details of its proposal. The White House declined to discuss them.

“We do not detail private diplomatic conversations. President Trump has been clear that Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon, and negotiations continue to ensure the short- and long-term national security of the United States,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.

The latest diplomatic push follows a long standoff in which Iran refused to send a negotiating team to an expected second round of talks in Pakistan last week and both sides dug in on an economic battle of attrition in the waters around Iran.

Tehran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz for weeks now by carrying out attacks on tankers and other ships, choking off access to the conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil supplies.

Also Read: Trump tells Congress ceasefire means he does not need their approval for Iran war

In return, the US last month imposed a blockade on Iranian ports and vessels in a bid to squeeze Tehran’s major source of foreign revenue and force it to concede in the talks.

Trump has told his aides to prepare for an extended blockage of Iran, US officials said. The duelling strangleholds on the strait have limited Iran’s exports and imports but have kept benchmark Brent oil futures elevated above $100 a barrel.

Tehran has said it isn’t prepared to offer significant compromises on its nuclear programme. In a proposal submitted last weekend, it said it would only negotiate on its nuclear file when all other issues around the strait and the end of the war were locked in.

The US wants Iran to halt its enrichment of nuclear fuel for up to 20 years and turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Iran has balked at a suspension of that length.

Also Read: Senior Iran military official says renewed conflict with US ‘likely’

Despite the standoff, both sides have continued to exchange messages through a range of intermediaries including Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey. Neither side has ruled out talks, though hopes for a US-Iran meeting in Pakistan last weekend fell through. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi travelled twice to Islamabad, but Trump cancelled sending his top aides after Tehran failed to confirm they were willing to meet.

On Friday, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control warned shipowners not to pay tolls to Iran for safe passage through the strait directly or via informal swaps or in-kind payments through donations to Iranian organizations like the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

Iran executes two Israeli spies

Iran hanged two men on Saturday convicted of spying for Israel, the judiciary said, the latest in a string of executions in recent weeks.

"Yaghoub Karimpour and Nasser Bekrzadeh were hanged for the crime of intelligence cooperation and espionage in favour of the Zionist regime," the judiciary's Mizan Online website said.

It was not immediately clear when the two men were arrested.

Mizan said Karimpour was convicted of the capital offence of "moharebeh," or waging war against God, over "filming and photographing security and military locations and sending them to a Mossad officer during the imposed war," referring to Iran's 12-day war with Israel in June 2025.

It added that Bekrzadeh cooperated with Israel's spy agency, Mossad, by sending information on "religious and provincial figures, as well as important centres such as the Natanz area," home to a key nuclear site.

Mizan did not specify whether Bekrzadeh's activities took place during wartime.