DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran said Thursday it is reviewing a U.S. ceasefire proposal meant to halt nearly four weeks of fighting, even as Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there were no talks with Washington and President Donald Trump insisted a deal was close, March 26, 2026. The split messaging left the latest peace push hanging between private message-passing and public rejection, raising fresh doubts about whether back-channel contact can become an actual truce.
According to Reuters reporting Thursday, Araqchi said messages were moving through friendly countries but argued that warnings and position papers sent through intermediaries do not amount to negotiation. Trump, speaking later in Washington, said Iranian leaders “want to make a deal so badly,” widening the public gap between the two sides.
The substance of the proposal helps explain the disconnect. In a Reuters report on the 15-point U.S. plan, the package was described as far more ambitious than a simple battlefield pause, including demands tied to the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s enriched uranium and its missile program. For Tehran, accepting that framework would look less like a ceasefire and more like negotiating under military pressure.
Iran ceasefire plan runs into scope and credibility problems
Iranian officials have not only resisted the terms but also the premise that formal talks are underway. In remarks carried by state media and reported by Reuters, an Iranian military spokesman said Washington was “negotiating with itself,” underscoring how determined Tehran is to avoid the appearance of publicly bargaining from a weakened position.
The proposal also appears to be expanding beyond Iran alone. A separate Reuters dispatch said Tehran has told intermediaries that Lebanon must be included in any ceasefire agreement with the United States and Israel, linking any halt in fighting to an end to Israeli operations against Hezbollah. That demand turns the current effort into something closer to a regional package than a narrowly drafted U.S.-Iran off-ramp.
That is why the current moment looks less like a breakthrough than a pressure test. Washington is presenting indirect contacts as evidence a deal is within reach. Tehran is treating the same exchanges as controlled signaling while it weighs whether any response would expose it to harsher military or political costs at home.
Why the Iran ceasefire plan still looks like indirect diplomacy
This pattern is not new. In April 2025, Reuters reported that Iran wanted indirect talks with the United States via Oman even while rejecting direct negotiations and warning regional states about the risks of being drawn into any U.S. strike. That preference for intermediaries has remained one of the clearest constants in Iran’s approach.
The fragility of those channels was clear again in June 2025, when Reuters reported that a planned round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks in Muscat was canceled after Israeli strikes on Iran. The cancellation was a reminder that diplomacy has repeatedly struggled to survive once battlefield escalation overtakes the negotiating calendar.
Lebanon provides another piece of the backdrop. The current Iranian insistence that Hezbollah not be left outside any agreement lands after the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, brokered by the United States and France, which ended that round of cross-border fighting but did not remove the wider regional contest that now hangs over the latest proposal.
What to watch next
The next signal is unlikely to be a dramatic public announcement. It will more likely come through whether Tehran sends back a formal counterproposal, whether Washington narrows its demands and whether intermediaries can reconcile two clashing narratives — Trump’s claim that a deal is near and Iran’s insistence that there are no talks to speak of.
Until that gap closes, the Iran ceasefire plan remains defined less by agreement than by ambiguity. Tehran is still reviewing the offer. Washington is still selling momentum. And the region is still waiting to see whether message-passing can outrun the war.
