Baghaei says that Iran’s proposal was “not excessive” and that whatever the situation is right now, it is all due to the fact that Washington continues to have “unreasonable demands” instead. He adds that Tehran is only seeking to secure its rights and have given “generous and responsible suggestions” to the US in trying to move things along.

Well, it is clear that there’s still no way forward for both sides. The latest proposal was labelled as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” by US president Trump, and that pretty much says it all.

With Trump himself set to make a visit to China in the coming days, he will be distracted and it is likely to mean no further progress between US and Iran relations for this week. As such, expect the status quo to at least prolong for another week considering the circumstances in play.

In case you missed it, Iran had an extensive list of demands here and the key thing in that is that they want sovereignty and to maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz. I mean are we really surprised at this point? They were willing to fire missiles last week to try and defend their position. After all, control over the strait is their biggest leverage over the US and its allies right now. So, it makes no sense for them to give that up before any other discussions.

Well, it’s back to the drawing board I guess.

Another week, another repeat of the headlines. It feels like we’re stuck in an endless loop of hearing the boy who cried wolf. In this case, there’s going to be some “breakthrough” rumour on talks and progress before the weekend only for it all to crumble apart again come the next Monday.

This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.