U.S. President Donald Trump convened a Situation Room meeting with his top national security and foreign policy advisors on Monday to review the state of the conflict with Iran, as diplomatic efforts stalled and a new Iranian proposal fell short of Washington’s stated conditions for ending hostilities.
The meeting was reported by Axios and ABC News, with one source saying the agenda centred on the stalemate in negotiations and determining next steps in the conflict.
The gathering follows a televised White House address in which Trump defended the ongoing military campaign. In the speech, Trump vowed two to three more weeks of “extremely hard” strikes against Iran, describing the United States as close to victory even as his approval ratings declined.
Tehran submitted a new proposal centred on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the U.S. naval blockade, with nuclear negotiations deferred to a later stage. U.S. officials said the offer fell short of Washington’s established red lines. An analyst who spoke to CNN was blunt about the prospects, saying the two sides were presenting maximalist positions and that a breakthrough was unlikely unless Washington changed course.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards complicated the picture further, declaring they had no intention of lifting their blockade of the waterway, stating that control of the strait and maintaining its “deterrent effects over America” remained Tehran’s definitive strategy.
The breakdown followed a brief moment of diplomatic momentum. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s visit to Islamabad had raised hopes for fresh negotiations, until Trump cancelled a planned trip by envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, telling Fox News that Iran could “come to us, or they can call us.”
Araghchi blamed Washington on Monday for the failure of the Pakistan talks, while separately travelling to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin, with Iranian and Russian state media confirming the visit.
Araghchi had indicated over the weekend that there was no internal consensus within Iran’s leadership on how to respond to U.S. demands, a signal that Tehran’s negotiating position remains unsettled.
The death toll from the conflict since U.S.-Israeli strikes began on 28 February stands at nearly 3,400 in Iran, over 2,200 in Lebanon, 32 in Gulf states, and 23 in Israel, according to figures cited in NBC News reporting.
