Iran says it receives US response to latest proposal as Washington pulls out of Iraq

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said on Wednesday it had received a U.S. response to its latest proposal to resurrect the collapsed ceasefire in the Gulf, days after President Donald Trump said he had rejected ​it.

Iran's allies were celebrating on Wednesday after Washington withdrew the last of its forces from neighboring Iraq, where 4,500 U.S. troops died in the biggest U.S. war of the century. More than 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in chaos unleashed after U.S. forces toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Tehran views the pullout as a victory for its "Axis of Resistance" ‌of allied armed groups, and a step towards its aim of driving U.S. forces out of the region.

With the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran now entering its eighth month, Iran put forward a proposal last week under which the United States would lift its blockade ⁠of Iranian ports and Iran would reopen the disrupted Strait of Hormuz within seven days.

Trump said ​on Sunday he had rejected the proposal, although Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said Tehran had ⁠not received a formal rejection. In a post on X on Wednesday, an Iranian government spokesperson said Aragchi had conveyed a U.S. response to the Iranian government.

Iran says its plan aims to restore an ‌interim agreement which collapsed weeks after it was ‌signed by Trump and Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian in June.

Last week, Qatari mediators shuttled between U.S. and Iranian envoys in New York on the sidelines of a ⁠meeting of the United Nations, the first proximity talks between the warring sides since the ceasefire unraveled.

An official briefed on the ⁠talks, who is not Iranian and spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the Qataris had briefed Aragchi on the U.S. response on Tuesday when Araqchi stopped off in Doha on his way home from New York. According to the official, the sides largely agree about the steps that are needed but still disagree about the order in which to take them.

Iran wants an eventual deal to grant it control over the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil shipping route, which runs past its coast.

Shipping through the strait has increased in recent weeks, with shippers charging high fees to brave the risk of attacks. But flows of crude oil, refined products and natural gas remain substantially disrupted. In the latest incidents, Britain's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported on Wednesday that two ships had been hit by projectiles the previous day.

US withdrawal in Iraq seen as defeat for Washington

U.S. and Iraqi officials announced the withdrawal of the last American troops from bases in Iraq on Wednesday, fulfilling a plan agreed in 2024 under President Joe Biden and carried out by the Trump administration while it wages war with Iran next door.

The withdrawal was celebrated by Iran and its allies. It marked an "historic victory for the Iraqi Islamic resistance groups and honorable Iraqis, and a crushing defeat for the American project," said Abu Mojtaba al-Yasiri, a commander in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed factions.

Iraq, which the United States invaded in 2003, has a Shi'ite majority like Iran, and Tehran has established broad political and military influence there.

The country has frequently become a proxy battlefield between the United States and Iran. Of the 18 U.S. servicemembers listed as killed since Trump launched Operation Epic Fury in February, seven died in Iraq. Washington blames Iran-backed groups in Iraq for striking neighboring countries, most recently ​knocking out a big Saudi oil pipeline three weeks ago.

The U.S. withdrawal raises "the possibility that Iran's proxies will feel increasingly empowered in the absence of a Western military presence," said Baghdad-based political analyst Ahmed Younis. "These groups may attempt to expand their role ‌in shaping state ‌policies and consolidating their presence within key institutions."

At ⁠home in the United States, polls show the Iran war was unpopular from the outset. The disruption to global energy supplies and resulting surge in fuel prices have hurt Trump's Republicans, trying to hang on to both houses of Congress in legislative elections five weeks away.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps urged Americans on Tuesday to vote out Trump's allies.

"Remove from power the evil, deceitful, and violent politicians who are responsible for America's current state," they wrote in a 26-page letter to U.S. voters. "Make sure your politicians understand that the world has changed."

The war has intensified an economic crisis inside Iran, but Tehran has retained the ability ‌to strike its neighbors and menace ships in ​the strait, where a fifth of global oil transited before the war. Trump says the war will be over soon ‌and Iran will ultimately surrender.

"I don't know if they ⁠are going to give up yet but ​they'll give up," he told reporters on Tuesday. "They are doing very poorly."

Contributing: Muayad Hameed, Kanishka Singh and Menna AlaaElDin

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