(AFP) – Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war:
– **Iran demands end to war**
Iran’s foreign ministry said it had called for an end to the war across the region and the release of frozen Iranian assets abroad in its response to the latest US peace proposal. “We did not demand any concessions. The only thing we demanded was Iran’s legitimate rights,” said ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei in a weekly press briefing.
– **Oil prices rise**
Oil prices rose in Asian trade after US President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s terms for ending the war. Brent North Sea Crude was up 4.75 percent at $99.95 a barrel. In China, official data showed consumer prices ticked up in April as the cost of crude rose because of the war.
– **Trump rejects Iran peace response**
Trump said Sunday he has rejected Iran’s response to a US proposal for ending the war. “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, without providing further details.
– **Hormuz meeting**
The United Kingdom and France will host a multinational meeting of defense ministers involving 40 countries Tuesday on military plans to restore trade flows through the Strait of Hormuz, the British defense ministry said.
– **Nobel laureate released**
Iranian authorities have released Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi on bail following growing alarm over her health, and she has been transferred to Tehran for medical treatment, her supporters said Sunday. After 10 days of hospitalization in Zanjan, in northern Iran, where she had been serving her sentence, Mohammadi “has been granted a sentence suspension on heavy bail,” her foundation said in a statement.
– **Trump to ‘pressure’ Xi**
Trump is expected to press Chinese President Xi Jinping on Iran when he visits Beijing this week, a senior administration official said Sunday, as the US leader seeks a deal to end the war. “I would expect the president to apply pressure,” the official said in a call with reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that Trump has done so in previous calls with Xi.
– **Iran sends response**
Iran has sent its response to a US proposal to end the war in the region via Pakistan, the official IRNA news agency said, without providing details. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “We will never bow down to the enemy, and if there is talk of dialogue or negotiation, it does not mean surrender or retreat.”
– **Iran warns UK, France**
Iran warned Britain and France that its armed forces would launch “a decisive and immediate response” if they sent warships to the Strait of Hormuz. London and Paris have both dispatched vessels to the region as part of international efforts to secure the strategic waterway in the event of a peace deal between the United States and the Islamic republic.
– **Drone attacks**
Drones were launched at several targets in the Gulf on Sunday, with one hitting a freighter sailing towards Qatar from Abu Dhabi. Qatar’s defense ministry said a small fire was sparked on the commercial vessel but there were no casualties. Kuwait’s military said it repelled a dawn drone attack.
– **Iran threatens US sites**
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened to target US sites in the Middle East and “enemy ships” if its tankers come under fire, Iranian media reported. “Any attack on Iranian tankers and commercial vessels will result in a heavy attack on one of the American centers in the region and enemy ships,” it said, a day after US attacks against two Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
© 2024 AFP
