Iran Rejects Trump’s 15-Point Peace Plan
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at dueling proposals to end the U.S.-Iran war, Denmark’s efforts to form a governing coalition, and Kenya finalizing trade talks with China.
U.S. President Donald Trump proposed a 15-point peace plan on Tuesday aimed at ending the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Less than 24 hours later, Tehran publicly rejected the plan, issued a counteroffer, and vowed to continue fighting in the interim.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at dueling proposals to end the U.S.-Iran war, Denmark’s efforts to form a governing coalition, and Kenya finalizing trade talks with China.
U.S. President Donald Trump proposed a 15-point peace plan on Tuesday aimed at ending the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Less than 24 hours later, Tehran publicly rejected the plan, issued a counteroffer, and vowed to continue fighting in the interim.
As Iran launched a fresh wave of attacks on Israel and Gulf countries on Wednesday, and as the White House approved the deployment of more troops to the Middle East, analysts predict that the nearly monthlong conflict is far from over.
According to a senior Iranian official quoted by Tehran’s state-run Press TV on Wednesday, “Iran will end the war when it decides to do so and when its own conditions are met.” The unnamed official called the U.S. proposal “disconnected from the reality of America’s failure on the battlefield.”
Under Trump’s proposal, Iran would “commit never to pursue nuclear weapons,” dismantle its three main nuclear facilities, and surrender all enriched uranium to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Tehran would also suspend ballistic missile production; limit the rest of its missile program; reopen the Strait of Hormuz; and stop funding regional proxy groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
In exchange, all international sanctions on Iran would be lifted, and the United States would assist and monitor Tehran’s civilian nuclear program. “They’d like to make a deal,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, referring to Iranians. “They’ve agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon.” Iran insists that it has no nuclear weapons ambitions and only uses its enriched uranium for civilian purposes.
However, Iran does not appear persuaded by the White House’s offer. It ruled out a temporary cease-fire out of fear that the United States and Israel would use that interlude to bolster their own forces before resuming strikes.
Trump ordered the deployment of some 2,000 additional troops to the Middle East this week at the same time that he pushed his 15-point peace plan. These soldiers—part of the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division—will bring the total number of recent U.S. deployments to the region to nearly 7,000 personnel.
On Wednesday, Iran proposed its own conditions to end the war. These include the United States and Israel paying reparations for war damages, recognizing Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, ending international sanctions on Tehran, and implementing a wider Middle East cease-fire that would protect Iran’s proxy groups.
Iran said that it would negotiate over the status of its nuclear enrichment capabilities but not its missile program. It maintained that the Strait of Hormuz would not reopen until a peace deal was secured.
“The authority to issue passage permits is ours,” Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari said of the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, adding that Iran plans to charge tolls on ships passing through the strategic waterway.
Despite publicly dismissing the White House’s offer, some Iranian authorities are privately contemplating peace talks. Iranian officials told the New York Times on Wednesday that Tehran is considering meeting with U.S. negotiators in Islamabad to discuss Trump’s proposal. Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey have all pushed for the warring sides to come to the negotiating table.
Coalition trouble in Denmark. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was appointed on Wednesday to lead coalition talks despite her Social Democrats party suffering a massive electoral defeat in Tuesday’s snap parliamentary elections.
In the party’s worst showing since 1903, the Social Democrats dropped from 50 seats to just 38 seats in the 179-member parliament. Frederiksen is expected to try to curry favor with the Green Left and the Danish Social Liberal Party. But those two groups would only bring Frederiksen’s coalition to 68 seats, still short of the 90-seat majority needed to govern.
That leaves Frederiksen with few options. The Red-Green Alliance and the Alternative party have expressed interest in joining the coalition, though their combined support (on top of seats from the three other parties) would only bring Frederiksen’s seat count to 84. Adding the 14 seats held by the Moderates party, led by Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, would bring Frederiksen over the finish line.
However, Rasmussen has previously suggested that he instead favors new leadership—potentially, himself.
Kenya-China deal. Kenya finalized trade negotiations with China on Wednesday, culminating two months of extensive talks to grant Nairobi duty-free access to Beijing’s market. Under a preliminary deal, 98 percent of Kenyan exports would be given quota-free status as part of a bid to forge closer ties between East Africa’s biggest economy and one of the world’s largest markets.
The Kenya-China agreement will go into effect in May. Kenyan President William Ruto praised the deal on Tuesday while announcing “deepening collaboration” in several other sectors. These include health care, manufacturing and industrialization, green energy, education, transportation, and digital innovation. “Our goal is to deliver tangible benefits for our people,” Ruto wrote on X.
At the same time, Kenya is pursuing trade talks with the United States. Earlier this year, the United States agreed to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which grants some African countries duty-free access, until late 2028. Kenya is the second-largest beneficiary of that act, as U.S. goods trade with Nairobi totaled roughly $1.8 billion last year.
Heavy Russia-Ukraine fighting. Russian forces claimed to have intercepted 389 Ukrainian drones on Wednesday in the largest reported overnight assault on Russian territory since the full-scale war erupted in February 2022. According to Moscow’s Foreign Ministry, attacks were recorded across 13 Russian regions—damaging at least one Baltic Sea port as well as key energy infrastructure.
The operation came one day after Russian troops fired nearly 1,000 drones and 34 missiles at civilian areas in Ukraine within a 24-hour period, killing at least six people and injuring around 50 others. “The scale of today’s attack strongly indicates that Russia has no intention of really ending this war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nighttime address.
UNESCO also denounced the operation, saying it was “deeply alarmed” by strikes that hit a World Heritage property in the Ukrainian city of Lviv.
With the Iran war putting Russia-Ukraine peace talks on the back burner, Kyiv has prioritized a renewed ground offensive. In the last two weeks in February, Ukrainian forces gained more ground than they had lost for the first time since 2023, primarily making gains in the Zaporizhzhia region. Analysts estimate that Ukraine has regained around 100 square miles of territory in total since the start of the year.
After 1,400 years of male leadership of the Church of England, a woman has finally taken up the mantle. Sarah Mullally, 63, was installed as the archbishop of Canterbury on Wednesday, making her the church’s most senior cleric and the ceremonial head of the global Anglican Communion.
“Installing Sarah as our first female archbishop would have almost been unimaginable even 50 years ago,” Very Rev. David Monteith, the dean of Canterbury Cathedral, said. Still, Mullally’s appointment—announced in October—has divided the global church, with some conservative Anglicans believing that “the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy.”
This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.
Alexandra Sharp is the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy. Bluesky: @alexandrassharp.bsky.social X: @AlexandraSSharp
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