Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran rejected the latest ceasefire proposal and wants a permanent end to the war. The agency said it has conveyed its response to the U.S. through Pakistan, a key mediator.
The president is expected to hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EDT. Watch live in our video player above.
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press on Monday.
WATCH LIVE: Trumps hold White House Easter Egg Roll as Iran war escalates
Also Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel attacked the South Pars petrochemical plant at Asaluyeh in Iran. He made the announcement after Iran said the facility had been attacked. An Israeli attack in March on South Pars facilities sparked major Iranian attacks targeting oil and gas infrastructure across the Gulf Arab states.
Meanwhile, Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
And President Donald Trump’s deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz loomed. Trump gave Tehran a deadline that expires Monday night Washington time, saying if no deal was reached to reopen the strait, the U.S. would hit Iran’s power plants and other infrastructure targets and set the country “back to the stone ages.” Following Trump’s expletive-laced threat on Easter Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf called the threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure “reckless.”
