A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday that “mediators” have shopped a proposal to Iran that would “de-escalate” the conflict with the United States by first establishing a ten-day ceasefire, and then building up to “revive” the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was signed in June.
Reuters’ unnamed source was short on details about the proposal, including the identity of the “mediators” who offered it. Qatar, Pakistan, and briefly Oman have all presented themselves as mediators between the United States and Iran at various points in negotiations over the past five months.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said at a press conference on Sunday that “mediators” were trying to de-escalate the conflict, but offered even fewer details.
“The principle of the matter is clear: mediators are working and trying to prevent tension from escalating,” he said.
“While our armed forces are responding with strength and power and destroying the source and origin of American aggression, diplomacy also knows its duties well and spares no effort,” he added unhelpfully.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a press conference on Sunday that the United States “always remains open to a diplomatic solution,” but Iran will have to do some work to convince U.S. negotiators it is serious about wanting peace.
“You can’t have an MOU that’s alive if they’re violating the terms of it,” he pointed out, referring to Iran’s deadly terror attacks on civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Rubio said Iran has signaled a desire to negotiate both “direct and through multiple channels with other countries as well.”
He said:
I think it’s pretty growingly apparent that even within their own system, there’s a growing split between those that understand their economy is in shambles, and they need to do something or they’re going to be in a lot of trouble very soon economically and domestically, and others who are very militant in their view of life, and in their view of the world, and continue to launch missiles.
“If the door opens to diplomacy, if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system or take control of the negotiations, that’ll be a very positive development. That’s not where we are tonight, unfortunately,” he said.
Iran’s yet-unseen supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, supposedly issued a statement on Saturday dismissing the MOU as “worthless and invalid.”
The vague report of a ceasefire proposal was evidently good enough news to stabilize oil and stock prices on Monday, with a 0.63-percent increase in the S&P 500, a 1.02-percent bump in the Nasdaq, and benchmark Brent crude oil slipping to $88.46 per barrel from over $90 on Sunday.