{"id":115511,"date":"2026-05-15T16:44:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/115511\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:44:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:44:31","slug":"tehran-threatens-to-accelerate-nuclear-weapon-programme-after-trump-rejects-garbage-peace-proposal-response-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/115511\/","title":{"rendered":"Tehran threatens to accelerate nuclear weapon programme after Trump rejects \u2018garbage\u2019 peace proposal response"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran <\/a>has threatened to accelerate its nuclear weapons programme <\/a>after Donald Trump<\/a> lashed out at its \u201cgarbage\u201d response to a US peace proposal.<\/p>\n

Tehran<\/a> could enrich uranium up to 90 per cent purity \u2013 a level considered weapons-grade \u2013 if the country is attacked once more, a top parliamentary official, Ebrahim Rezaei, said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of Iran\u2019s options in the event of another attack could be 90 per cent enrichment. We will review it in the parliament,\u201d he posted on X.<\/p>\n

It follows reports on CNN that Donald Trump is considering new military strikes on the country, as he grows impatient with the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz. He feels a division in the Iranian leadership is obstructing progress towards a deal.<\/p>\n

\"Donald<\/p>\n

Donald Trump after delivering remarks during his second ‘Rose Garden Club’ dinner in honour of Police Week at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11 (Reuters)<\/p>\n

Several officials now doubt whether Tehran is willing to adopt a serious negotiating stance, they said, driving the Trump administration to reconsider its strategy.<\/p>\n

Aides to the president said he is now more seriously considering reopening major combat operations, though he is unlikely to make a decision before his historic trip to China this week. A ceasefire agreed between the two countries last month has largely held despite occasional exchanges of fire.<\/p>\n

The uncertainty comes as Mr Trump prepared for a high-stakes meeting with president Xi Jinping in Beijing<\/a>, the first in the Chinese capital for a sitting US<\/a> president in a decade. The meeting had already been pushed back as a result of the Iran conflict.<\/p>\n

Hopes of a peace deal to end the war were dampened on Monday as Mr Trump said the month-long ceasefire with Iran was on \u201clife support\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told reporters in the Oval Office that while the ceasefire was still in place for now, it was \u201cunbelievably weak\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would call it the weakest right now, after reading that piece of garbage they sent us. I didn\u2019t even finish reading it,\u201d Mr Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to end the ceasefire, told reporters.<\/p>\n

Iran doubled down on its latest offer, a 14-point proposal floated at the start of May<\/a> and reported to demand a permanent end to the war and resolving all issues within 30 days.<\/p>\n

That would include the withdrawal of all US forces from around Iran, the release of frozen assets, the lifting of sanctions and a \u201cnew mechanism\u201d for the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

\"USS<\/p>\n

USS Rafael Peralta (DDG-115) implements a maritime blockade against an Iranian-flagged ship attempting to sail toward an Iranian port, on 26 April (Getty)<\/p>\n

Mr Trump is nonetheless reported to be keen to end war in Iran, which a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday had \u200bcost $29bn (\u00a321.4bn) so far, an increase of $4bn from an estimate provided late last month.<\/p>\n

Jules Hurst, who is performing the duties of the \u200bwar comptroller, told lawmakers that the sum included updated repair and replacement of equipment and operational costs.<\/p>\n

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on social media on Monday, after Mr Trump said the ceasefire was in peril, that there was \u201cno alternative\u201d to Iran\u2019s most recent demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny other approach will be completely inconclusive; nothing but one failure after another. The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The US had proposed an end to the fighting before starting talks on more contentious issues, including Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, which was cited among the reasons for launching the conflict in February.<\/p>\n

Also on Monday, the US imposed new sanctions on individuals and companies it said were helping Iran to ship oil to China, piling on pressure ahead of Mr Trump\u2019s visit to Beijing.<\/p>\n

He is expected to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday, where Iran is set to be among the topics discussed with Xi.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that Mr Trump also wanted to discuss Taiwan and the case of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said China\u2019s stance on US arms sales to Taiwan remains unchanged, and that its position on Mr Lai has been stated many times already.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran has threatened to accelerate its nuclear weapons programme after Donald Trump lashed out at its \u201cgarbage\u201d response…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[38,34,15401,269,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-115511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tehran","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-mr-trump","11":"tag-nuclear-weapons","12":"tag-tehran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116579602574489872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}