Rezaei: Trump is ‘stuck in the quagmire’ and the U.S. is ‘failing’ in the Middle East, says Iran’s security chief

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei said on Tuesday that Tehran has made it clear to U.S. President Donald Trump that he is “stuck in the quagmire,” accusing Washington of failing in the Middle East.

Meeting with the Azerbaijani official

The statement was made during a meeting with Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev, as Al Jazeera reports. Rezaei said Trump’s policies in the region are “failing” and that the U.S. president, out of desperation, has resorted to what he called an “air blockade” of Iran. U.S. sanctions on Iranian airlines have shut them out of most of the world’s airspace.

Conditions for talks

Rezaei repeated the message he had announced earlier on X, unveiling Iran’s seven conditions for starting talks with the U.S. government, including an end to the war on all fronts, the release of frozen Iranian funds and an end to the U.S. naval blockade.

“Tehran has announced seven conditions for starting any negotiations with the U.S. government. Tehran’s message is clear and unambiguous; if Washington wants to get out of the quagmire it created itself and avoid sinking even deeper into it, there is no solution other than accepting Iran’s rights and conditions,” Rezaei said.

The position comes as Qatar continues mediating between Washington and Tehran, while President Trump has said the conflict could end “very soon.” Iran, for its part, insists its conditions must be met first.

The Iranian parliament’s warning

On the same day, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf warned that “where we don’t sell oil, nobody will sell oil,” calling Trump’s claims of control over the Strait of Hormuz baseless, as Press TV reports.