US expects Iran's response to peace plan aimed at ending Gulf war

Araghchi accuses the US of undermining diplomatic efforts to end war

The United States said on Friday it expected an Iranian response as soon as later in the day to its latest proposal to end the war in the ??Gulf, even as US and Iranian forces clashed in the Gulf and the United Arab Emirates came under renewed attack.

 

Recent days have seen the biggest flare-ups in fighting in and around the contested Strait of Hormuz since a ceasefire began a month ago, even as the United States and Iran have indicated they are closer than ever to a deal to end the war.

 

“We should know something today,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Rome on Friday. “We’re expecting a response from them. We’ll see what the response entails. The hope is it’s something that can put us into a serious process of negotiation.”

 

 

US Vice President JD Vance is in a meeting with the prime minister of Qatar to discuss the negotiations with Iran, Axios  reported.

 

US President Donald Trump said a ceasefire was still holding despite the flare-up. Washington is awaiting Tehran’s response to a US proposal, which would formally end the war first, before talks to resolve the most contentious issues such as the fate of Iran’s nuclear programme.

 

Mehr news agency reported that explosions were heard in Iran’s Sirik near the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. It said 10 crew members were injured and five missing from an Iranian commercial ship attacked late on Thursday by the US Navy in waters near the strait, the vital conduit for global energy supplies that Tehran has all but closed since the war began.

 

Trump said three US Navy destroyers had been attacked as they moved through the strait, and the US military had fired back. “Three World Class American 

 

Destroyers just transited, very successfully, out of the Strait of Hormuz, under fire. There was no damage done to the three Destroyers, but great damage done to the Iranian attackers,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

 

Iran slams US for ‘reckless’ adventure

 

Iran accused the United States of breaching the ceasefire, which had largely held since it was announced on April 7 but has come under far bigger strain this week since Trump announced - and then paused - a new naval mission in the strait.

 

“Every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the US opts for a reckless military adventure,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday. Iran’s top joint military command said US forces had targeted an Iranian oil tanker and another ship, and carried out air attacks on civilian areas on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz and nearby coastal areas. It said Iranian forces responded by attacking US military vessels east of the strait and south of the port of Chabahar.

 

Suspected oil spill near Kharg Island

 

A suspected oil spill covering dozens of square kilometres of sea near Iran’s main oil hub of Kharg Island has been seen on satellite imagery this week.

 

The likely spill — appearing on images as a grey and white slick — covered waters to the west of the 8-km  long island, pictures from Copernicus’s Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 satellites showed on May 6-8.  Leon Moreland, researcher at the Conflict and Environment Observatory,  estimated that it was covering an area of approximately 45 square km. Louis Goddard, cofounder of consultancy Data Desk agreed that the images likely showed an oil slick, which he said was potentially the largest to occur since the start of the US-Israel war against Iran 70 days ago.