Iran is preparing for a “major round of fighting”, a source in Tehran said on Saturday, as diplomatic efforts falter and the US administration considers its next steps.
The two sides met in New York last month to find common ground as a prelude to full negotiations to end seven months of conflict, but no breakthrough emerged after several meetings.
US President Donald Trump and Iranian officials have since signalled that they are preparing for a resumption of the war, with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying his country would fight even if it meant an “apocalyptic” war.
“The military option [for the US] has not been abandoned, and this is clear to the Iranians,” said the source in Tehran. “But the Iranians are also preparing for a major round of fighting and have the capabilities to do so”.
A US official told The National on Thursday that a third aircraft carrier strike group, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, is en route to Central Command's area of operations, which spans the Middle East.
Axios later reported that Mr Trump’s top national security officials held a “secret meeting” at Camp David to discuss the next steps in the Iran war and Washington’s approach to the Iran-backed Houthi offensive in Yemen.
Vice President JD Vance chaired the meeting at the presidential retreat, the US news outlet added, citing people familiar with the discussions.
Yemeni rebels have been launching attacks on the strategic city of Taiz in south-western Yemen after taking control of the western coast. The offensive, even if it does not succeed, has put significant pressure on government forces and is preventing them from launching counter-attacks to regain areas overlooking the Bab Al Mandeb strait.
The rebels, who seized the coast with the help of Iranian operatives according to multiple Yemeni and Iranian sources, have not yet disrupted shipping through the waterway. However, the Tehran source said this did not mean there would be no action there.
“The cautious approach to Bab Al Mandeb so far does not mean it will be incapable of acting later,” claimed the source. “Likewise, the aerial blockade imposed on Iran does not mean Tehran will simply stand by and watch. Iran’s security cannot be separated from the security of the region.”
In New York, Mr Araghchi said his country had conveyed to the US, through Qatar, a firm seven-day plan to resolve the stand-off over the Strait of Hormuz, with the waterway expected to reopen on the sixth day if the agreed steps were implemented.
The US subsequently sent a counterproposal, which Iran has yet to respond to but appears unlikely to accept, having insisted that its own proposal was the only way forward.
According to sources in Tehran, during the latest talks Iran has also proposed transferring its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 per cent to a third party as part of its latest plan to break the diplomatic deadlock with the US.
The proposal envisages a phased process in which the stockpile would first be diluted before being transferred out of Iran under mechanisms recognised by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The third-party transfer goes beyond Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's public comments that Tehran was prepared to dilute its 60 per cent enriched uranium and submit the process to verification. The mechanism revives and expands an idea discussed during earlier negotiations mediated by Oman and, the source said, shortly before the war began on February 28.
The offer was part of the broader Iranian road map presented to Washington in New York.
US and Iranian officials have said that Iran wants Washington to take concrete steps before Tehran fully reopens the Strait of Hormuz, reversing the sequence in previous negotiations, where agreements were negotiated first and implemented afterwards. Washington, however, wants Iran to reopen the strategic waterway first.
“The door to diplomacy remains open and has not been closed. But assessments in Iran are that the war is resuming,” the Tehran source claimed.
