Iran responds to US ceasefire proposal as drones target Gulf countries – National
Iran has sent its response to the latest US ceasefire proposal through Pakistani mediators and wants the talks to focus on ending the war once and for all, Iranian media said on Sunday. Pakistan has confirmed that it receives it.
Iran wants to end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, and to ensure the safety of ships, its state TV said. Washington's latest proposal talked about an agreement to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and roll back Iran's nuclear program, an issue Tehran would like to discuss later.
The White House did not immediately comment on Iran's response. President Donald Trump is giving diplomacy “every opportunity we can get before going back to war,” the US ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told ABC.
Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen or heard from in public since the war began, “issued new and decisive instructions to continue operations and confront the enemy forcefully” while meeting with the head of the joint military command, state broadcaster reported, without details.
The ceasefire was monitored by drones
Meanwhile, the fragile ceasefire was tested when a drone opened fire on a ship from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait reported drones entering their airspace. The UAE blamed Iran. No injuries were reported, and no one claimed responsibility.
Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called it a “dangerous and unacceptable escalation that threatens the security and safety of maritime trade routes and important things in the region.”
Iran and allied armed groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon have used drones to carry out hundreds of strikes since the war began with attacks on the US and Israel in Feb. 28.
Iran says it is 'fully prepared' to protect nuclear sites
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Trump reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran does not accept a deal to reopen the strait and scale back its nuclear program. Iran has largely blocked a waterway that is key to the flow of oil, natural gas and fertilizers since the war began, shaking global markets.
The US has blockaded Iranian ports and on Friday hit two Iranian oil tankers that it said were trying to violate the embargo. Iran's Revolutionary Guard navy says any attack on Iranian oil tankers or commercial vessels will be met with a “severe attack” on one of the US bases in the region and on enemy ships.
The US military said on Sunday it had turned back 61 commercial vessels and disabled four since the blockade began on April 13.
Another sticking point in the talks is Iran's highly enriched uranium. The UN nuclear agency says Iran has more than 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of enriched uranium reaching 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels.
In an interview with state media broadcast late Saturday, a spokesman for Iran's military said its forces were “fully prepared” to protect nuclear facilities where uranium is stored.
“We saw that it is possible that they intend to steal by entering or using a helicopter,” Brig. Gen. Akrami Nia told IRNA news.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with CBS scheduled to be broadcast later on Sunday said the war is not over because the enriched uranium needs to be removed from Iran. “Trump said to me, 'I want to get in there,' and I think it can be done physically,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Moscow's proposal to seize enriched uranium from Iran to help negotiate a deal is still on the table.
Most of Iran's most enriched uranium is likely at its Isfahan site, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency told The Associated Press last month. The facility was attacked by US-Israeli airstrikes in the 12-day war last year and has suffered less attacks this year.
Pakistan oversaw face-to-face talks between the US and Iran last month and continues to pursue mediation. In a rare public comment, army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir said Islamabad remains committed to helping end the conflict. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke on the phone with his Qatari counterpart.
Drone attacks target Gulf Arab countries
The UAE Ministry of Defense said it had shot down two drones and blamed Iran.
In Kuwait, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Brig. General Saud Abdulaziz Al Otaibi said the hostile drones entered Kuwait's airspace and the forces responded “in accordance with established procedures.” The ministry did not say where the airlifters came from.
Qatar's Ministry of Defense said a drone targeted a commercial ship from Abu Dhabi, setting off a small fire that has since been extinguished. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said the attack took place 43 kilometers northeast of the capital, Doha. It did not give details of the ship's owner or its origin, and there was no request for commitment.
Several attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf have occurred in the past week, and the US effort to “maneuver” the ships in the port soon came to a screeching halt.
South Korea has announced the first results of an investigation into two unidentified objects that struck the South Korean naval vessel HMM NAMU about a minute apart while docked in the Strait of Hormuz last week, causing an explosion and fire. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that officials are still unclear as to who did this.
–Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press Correspondents Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
