Iran Says Counterproposal Coming Within Days While Trump Weighs Military Action

Iran’s foreign minister said on Friday he expected to have a draft counterproposal ready within days following nuclear talks with the United States this week, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes.

This comes as the U.S. military planning on Iran had reached an advanced stage, with options including targeting individuals as part of an attack and even pursuing leadership change in Tehran, if ordered by Trump.

Asked on Friday if he was considering a limited strike to pressure Iran into a deal, Trump told reporters at the White House: “I guess I can say I am considering” it. Asked later about Iran at a White House press conference, Trump added: “They better negotiate a fair deal.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said after indirect discussions in Geneva this week with Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner that the sides had reached an understanding on main “guiding principles,” but that did not mean a deal was imminent.

Araqchi, in an interview on MS NOW, said he had a draft counterproposal that could be ready in the next two or three days for top Iranian officials to review, with more U.S.-Iran talks possible in a week or so. As for potential U.S. military action, he said it would complicate efforts to reach a deal.

Araqchi, however, gave no specific timing as to when Iranians would get their counterproposal to Witkoff and Kushner, but said he believed a diplomatic deal was within reach and could be achieved “in a very short period of time.”

During the Geneva talks, the United States did not seek zero uranium enrichment and Iran did not offer to suspend enrichment, Araqchi told MS NOW.

“What we are now talking about is how to make sure that Iran’s nuclear program, including enrichment, is peaceful and would remain peaceful forever,” he said, adding that technical and political “confidence-building measures” would be enacted to ensure the program would remain peaceful in exchange for action on sanctions, but he gave no further details.

“The president has been clear that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons or the capacity to build them, and that they cannot enrich uranium,” the White House said when asked about Araqchi’s comments.

Middle East on Edge

The tensions between the longtime adversaries have ramped up as the Trump administration pushes for concessions from Iran and has built up the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, with more warships and aircraft on the way.

Accordingly, Iran’s Gulf neighbours, as well as the Zionist entity, now consider a conflict to be more likely than a settlement, according to Reuters, citing officials from both sides, and diplomats across the Gulf and Europe.

On Friday, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean Sea after being sent by Trump from the Caribbean, according to images of the ship by maritime photographers posted to social media.

Both Iran and the U.S. have signaled that they are prepared for war if talks on Tehran’s nuclear program fizzle out. “We are prepared for diplomacy, and we are prepared for negotiation as much as we are prepared for war,” Araghchi said Friday.

Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, said Iran “would treat any kinetic action as an existential threat.”

Vaez said he doesn’t think Iran’s leaders are bluffing when they say they would retaliate, while they likely believe they could maintain their hold on power despite any U.S. airstrikes.

Satellite images show that Iran has recently built a concrete shield over a new facility at a sensitive military site and covered it in soil, experts say, advancing work at a location reportedly bombed by the Zionist forces in 2024 amid tensions with the U.S.

Images also show that Iran has buried tunnel entrances at a nuclear site bombed by the U.S. during the 12-day war last year, fortified tunnel entrances near another, and has repaired missile bases struck in the war.