Iran Says It Has Conveyed Conditions to Re-Engage in Talks, End War with US
Iran has conveyed its conditions to mediators for re-engaging in negotiations aimed at ending the war with the US, Al Jazeera cited Iran's Security Chief Mohsen Rezaei as saying in an interview on Saturday.
The conditions include ending the war on all fronts, unfreezing Iranian funds and ending the naval blockade, Rezaei said, adding that consultations were continuing with Qatari and Pakistani mediators and that Tehran was awaiting a response from US President Donald Trump.
Iran Says Received US Response to Its Proposal to End War
Iranian authorities said on Wednesday they received the official US response to their proposal to end the Middle East war, state media reported, days after US President Donald Trump rejected the plan.
"At today's cabinet meeting, the American side's proposal was presented to President Masoud Pezeshkian by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi," government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani told the official IRNA news agency, without specifying the content of the reply.
After seven months of conflict, indirect talks between the United States and Iran resumed last week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, said AFP.
Iran said it has put forward seven conditions for ending hostilities and reopening the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for oil and gas exports.
The strait lies at the heart of the conflict between the United States and Iran, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.
Tehran imposed a blockade on Hormuz after the war started, prompting Washington to respond with its own blockade on Iranian ports.
While not all conditions have been made public, Iran is notably demanding a ceasefire across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, where its ally Hezbollah has been battling Israeli forces.
It is also demanding the unfreezing of Iranian assets abroad, the lifting of sanctions on its oil sector and an end to the US naval blockade.
Trump rejected the proposal when speaking to the press on Saturday, but Tehran had been awaiting an official response via Qatari mediators.
Fighting has subsided in recent weeks, though Tehran has continued to target ships in the strait.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the country's military, said on Wednesday that they have been striking small vessels that try to pass through the strait.
"We have been striking ships for quite some time now -- specifically the small vessels I mentioned that attempt to pass. We block their passage, yet the US has not retaliated for a while," Guards spokesperson Hossein Mohebi told state TV.
The US, meanwhile, has stepped up its economic warfare against Iran, imposing sanctions on Iranian airlines and vowing to take a hard stance against foreign companies that provide them with assistance.
US Supreme Court Lifts Limits on Third-country Deportations
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted restrictions on the deportations of immigrants to countries that are not their own, while agreeing to hear the issue on its merits in December.
The conservative-dominated high court granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to suspend a lower court ruling that restricted, but did not outright ban, so-called "third-country removals."
The lower court had said people targeted with deportation must be given effective notice ahead of time about where they are being sent to allow them to raise concerns about potential persecution, said AFP.
The three liberal justices on the nine-member bench said they would not have granted the administration's request.
President Donald Trump campaigned on promises to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States and has taken several actions aimed at speeding up deportations since returning to the White House in 2025.
The Trump administration has defended third-country deportations as necessary since the home nations of some of those who are targeted for removal sometimes refuse to accept them.
In a brief to the Supreme Court, opponents of lifting the restrictions argued that the lower court ruling did not fully block all third-country deportations, "it simply requires them to do so lawfully."
Trump's solicitor general, John Sauer, meanwhile told the court that the rapid deportation to third countries was "an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminal aliens."
The lower court ruling "created substantial logistical problems" with removals, he said.
An AFP investigation found that the US has offered multimillion-dollar deals and threatened visa restrictions in a bid to get "third countries," especially in Africa, to take such deportees.
Once in these countries -- and outside US jurisdiction -- deportees have been subject to abuse by local guards, indefinite detention, or quickly re-deported to their home countries.
According to an investigation published last week, the United States has deported more than 25,000 people under secretive agreements with 35 countries to take migrants with no ties to those nations.
The investigation by Forbidden Stories found the administration has earmarked $410 million to be paid directly to the receiving countries, or to United Nations agencies to facilitate the returns.
The vast majority of the deportees -- around 20,000 -- were sent to Mexico, but the rest were dispersed to 27 other countries across Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific, and agreements have been finalized with seven more.
Congress has made it US policy not to deport people to countries where their lives would be in danger or they could be subject to torture.
After the high court's ruling, some Democratic lawmakers were calling for more formalized steps to prevent such deportations and uphold due process.
