Oil prices are rising today after Donald Trump flatly rejected Iran’s response to the US proposal to end the war, with Tehran on the other hand warning France and Britain against any intervention in the region.

“I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘representatives’. I don’t like it–it’s totally unacceptable!” said, typing the last two words in all caps, the Republican via Truth Social.

Before Asian markets even opened, crude prices took off… the elevator and were back above $104 a barrel, with the North Sea Brent up 3.29% as the prospect of a quick opening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s peacetime oil consumption passes–and which Iran effectively closed after the U.S.-Israeli attack on it began on February 28th.

More than a month after a truce was declared, the talks between Washington and Tehran seem, more than ever, to be at an impasse and hopes of a settlement are fading. Neither side has publicly revealed exactly what it is proposing. The US president did not even make clear yesterday whether negotiations would continue.

After days of waiting, Iran made clear yesterday that it had responded to the US proposal, but did not go into details.

Iranian public television limited itself to saying that the response, which was delivered to the USvia Pakistan, provides for “the end of the war” on “all fronts, particularly in Lebanon” and “security guarantees for navigation”.

opening the narrow;

According to reports by the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the dossier, the proposal submitted by Tehran calls for the gradual opening of the Strait of Hormuz and the simultaneous lifting of the blockade of Iranian ports by the U.S. Navy.

According to the US newspaper, Tehran also says it is willing to “dilute” some of the uranium it has enriched by a high percentage and send it to a “third country”, possibly Russia.

The US and Israel claim that the Islamic Republic is seeking to acquire a nuclear arsenal through uranium enrichment;-the other side has been denying this for decades now and insists that it will not abrogate its right to have a civilian nuclear energy program.

“What remains is the nuclear material–enriched uranium–that we need to get from Iran” and “dismantle the enrichment facilities.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS News earlier yesterday.

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The war, which claimed the lives of thousands of people, the vast majority of them in Iran and Lebanon, has allowed the USand Israel “to achieve a lot of things, but it’s not over,” he asserted.

Drones in Kolpo

In the Gulf, new raids by unmanned aerial vehicles were reported yesterday.

In Qatar’s territorial waters, a bulk carrier coming from Abu Dhabi was hit by a drone, but continued on its way, according to the emirate’s Ministry of Defence.

According to the Iranian News AgencyFARS, sails “under the US flag” and “belongs to the US“. The agency did not explicitly say whether it was targeted by Iran.

Other countries suffered drone strikes. Kuwait did not clarify where they were launched from. The UAEdirectly blamed Iran.

Since the war broke out, the Gulf monarchies, allies of the US, have been repeatedly hit by Iranian strikes.

The attacks were recorded two days after the US armed forces “neutralized”–disabled–two Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman, where access to the Strait of Hormuz is gained.

“Our restraint is over,” Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, asserted. “Any attack against our ships will trigger Iranian strong and decisive retaliation against ships and bases” of the US, he added.

“We will never bow our heads before the enemy, and if there is a question of dialogue or negotiation, that does not mean surrender either, nor retreat,” said X Iranian President Massoud Pezzekian.

France and Britain in the crosshairs

Britain and France are continuing their initiative to establish an international coalition to take action to guarantee the security of the strait after a settlement of the war.

Defence ministers from the two countries will co-chair a video conference session tomorrow with some forty counterparts from countries willing to have input into the project, London said.

Tehran warned that any intervention would trigger a “decisive and immediate reaction” from the Iranian armed forces, following announcements by Paris and London that they had sent warships to “preposition” themselves in the region, notably the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.

France has “never” considered conducting military operations in Hormuz, all it wants is to conduct an operation to guarantee the security of the strait “in coordination with Iran”, French President Emmanuel Macron has countered.

In the other main theater of the war, Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah are continuing hostilities despite a ceasefire that was supposedly put in place on April 17the 17th.

Two rescuers from the Islamic Health Committee–an organization affiliated with the Shiite movement Hezbollah–were killed and five others wounded in Israeli shelling in the south of the country yesterday, announced theLebanese HealthMinistry of Health, which said two have been killed since the outbreak of a new war on March 2day in Israeli military operations.846 people, including 108 health workers.