Iran just sent Trump peace terms and a warning of decisive war
20 September 2026 · 20 September 2026Share
Secretary Kerry posed with E.U., P5+1, and Iranian officials at the Austria Center in Vienna on July 14, 2015, before the formal announcement of the agreement concluding the Iranian nuclear negotiations. File photo.U.S. Department of State · Public domain
Iran just sent Washington its terms to end the war.
Mohsen Rezaei says it. He runs Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
He told Al Jazeera a few hours ago that Iran passed the terms through Qatar. Qatar has been the go-between for months.
So what does Iran want? Three things.
End the war, everywhere. Unfreeze Iran's money. Lift the US naval blockade.
Mohsen Rezaei says quote "an end to the war on all fronts".
And here's why this matters so much. Iran hasn't laid out a formal position like this in months.
Quick recap. This war started about seven months ago, late February. The US and Israel struck Iran and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was Supreme Leader at the time. His son Mojtaba Khamenei took over. Masoud Pezeshkian is still president.
A ceasefire got agreed on 8 April. It fell apart. Both sides broke it.
They tried again. A 60-day framework on 12 June. Then an actual written agreement on 17 June. That expired last month too.
And the US navy blockade? Still there. Been running since 12 to 13 April.
So since the written deal expired, Qatar and Pakistan have been trying to get both sides talking again. Qatar's prime minister even flew to Tehran last month to meet Rezaei directly.
Al Jazeera's Tehran correspondent, Tohid Asadi, called this a twofold message. Diplomacy on one hand. A war warning on the other.
And that warning was not soft.
Mohsen Rezaei told Al Jazeera Trump's threats will not achieve any results, and that Iran is prepared for what he called a decisive war.
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An aerial view of Doha in Qatar. File photo. otterboris · CC BY 3.0
He said a new US strike is very much on the cards. He said Iran's military planning has shifted. Now it's aimed at American naval assets, from the Gulf all the way through the Gulf of Oman to the Arabian Sea.
Anything further out, towards the Indian Ocean? He says that's beyond Iran's reach.
He also said Iran recently fired a missile with multiple warheads near a US ship. Worth flagging: that claim comes from this one interview. Nobody else has confirmed it yet.
Rezaei also pushed back on America. Washington accused Iran of breaking the collapsed agreement by hitting an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Rezaei says Iran only did that after the US struck the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas first.
On nuclear weapons, he says Iran hasn't decided to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He says Iran still follows a fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini banning nuclear weapons outright.
And on Yemen? He denied Iran has any role there at all. He called the Bab al-Mandeb Strait a Yemeni matter.
So what's Trump said about all this? Nothing specific yet.
But days before this interview, he said the US is hopefully toward the end of the war. He also said he'd spoken directly with Iranian officials. Tehran hasn't confirmed that happened.
So how will Washington actually read these terms?
David Des Roches has an idea. He used to run Arabian Peninsula affairs at the Pentagon.
David Des Roches says quote "they would be viewed as surrender".
That's a former US defence official saying Iran's opening bid looks like something Washington just won't take.
But he pointed to one thing that changed. Iran dropped its earlier demand for war reparations. He says that could be a real sign Tehran wants to move.
So here's where this actually sits. The peace terms are on the table. So is the threat sitting right next to them.
What we don't know: whether Trump takes this seriously or writes it off. Whether Iran's three conditions can bend or not. And what Pakistan is actually doing in these talks right now.
Nobody has said when, or if, an answer is coming back.
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