Iran says it is 'ready for a doomsday war' with US after Trump rejects ceasefire plan

Iran’s foreign minister has said Tehran is fully prepared for a “doomsday war” with the United States, in a combative television interview broadcast on Sunday after President Donald Trump publicly rejected Iran’s latest ceasefire proposal.

Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, Abbas Araghchi said: “We stand firm in the face of any aggression against us, even when it comes to a doomsday war.” He added: “At the same time, we are ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose,” according to the New York Post.

Responding to a Wall Street Journal report, quoted by ANI, that Trump had told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterm elections, Araghchi said: “We don’t care about U.S. midterm elections. We care about our national interests.”

Trump rejected Tehran’s seven-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume nuclear talks. The proposal would have seen the United States unfreeze about $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets, end the blockade and ease sanctions in exchange for the strait reopening, the Post reported.

“They want to make a deal to open the Hormuz Strait immediately because they’re losing so badly,” Trump told reporters on Saturday. Araghchi said the rejection had not yet been formally communicated to Tehran through the mediators, the Tribune reported.

US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, appearing on the same programme before Araghchi, called the offer “a pretty cynical attempt to put something on the table that they knew was unacceptable”.

Araghchi also insisted Iran would be better prepared for any renewed strikes: “We have learned our lesson from the two previous wars, and we have corrected our tactics. We have changed our tactics, and we are fully prepared to do that.”

Iran first floated the seven-day plan at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, mirroring a memorandum of understanding signed with Washington in June that collapsed after reciprocal strikes.