IRAN’S response to the latest proposal by Washington to end the conflict in the Persian Gulf was slammed by US President Donald Trump as “totally unacceptable.”

President Trump’s rebuke on Sunday to the message sent via Pakistani mediators is the latest setback to efforts to resolve the illegal and unprovoked war unleashed by the US and Israel against Iran in February.

Iranian television reported that Tehran rejected the US proposal as amounting to surrender, insisting instead on “war reparations by the US, full Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions and the release of seized Iranian assets.”

Washington’s latest proposal addressed a deal to end the war, reopen the strait and roll back Iran’s nuclear programme.

But taking to social media, the US president rejected Iran’s response as “totally unacceptable,” in the now familiar capitalised letters.

President Trump included no details but in an earlier post he accused Tehran of “playing games” with the US for nearly 50 years, saying: “They will be laughing no longer!”

US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told ABC earlier that President Trump is giving diplomacy “every chance we possibly can before going back to hostilities.” 

According to Iranian television, Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei “issued new and decisive directives for the continuation of operations and the powerful confrontation with the enemies” to the head of the joint military command.

President Trump has reiterated threats to resume full-scale bombing if Iran does not accept an agreement to reopen the strait and roll back its nuclear programme. 

Iran has largely blocked the strategic waterway that’s key to the global flow of oil, natural gas and fertiliser since the war began, sending world financial markets into free fall.

The US military in turn has blockaded Iranian ports since April 13, saying it has turned back 61 commercial vessels and disabled four. 

On Friday, it struck two Iranian oil tankers it said were trying to breach the blockade. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy says any attack on Iranian oil tankers or commercial vessels would be met with a “heavy assault” on US bases in the region and enemy ships.

In an interview posted late Saturday, Brigadier General Akrami Nia told the IRNA news agency that Tehran was suspicious that the US might be intending to steal its uranium “through infiltration or heli-borne operations.”

He said Iranian forces were on “full readiness” to protect sites where uranium is stored.