US officials were said to be frustrated on Wednesday by a list of conditions Iran laid out for entering into negotiations to end the war, as mixed signals continued to emerge regarding US President Donald Trump’s fledgling efforts to halt the fighting.

Iran recently presented the US with a list of demands it expects the Trump administration to honor if it wishes to proceed with ceasefire negotiations, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, almost a month into the war that began with US and Israeli strikes against Iranian regime targets on February 28.

Among those demands, the report said, the Islamic Republic was seeking economic control over the Strait of Hormuz, a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the continued ability to developing its ballistic missile program without any limitations.

Other purported conditions, including the dismantling of US army bases in the region and financial compensation for war damages, have been previously reported.

The demands were presented via third-party intermediaries, the report said, and there has been no direct contact between Washington and Tehran.

Many of Iran’s demands would appear to be in complete contradiction to Washington’s own reported conditions for ending the war.

The US expects, among other things, for Iran to limit both the range and quantity of its missile programs and to commit to using them only for self-defense; to abandon its practice of forming and supporting regional proxies, including Hezbollah; and to dismantle all existing nuclear capabilities and hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium.

US and Middle Eastern officials cited by the Journal on Wednesday dismissed Iran’s purported demands as unrealistic and suggested they would make the chances of reaching a deal with Tehran even slimmer than during the last-ditch attempt at negotiations before the war broke out.

Iran, shoring up that assertion, tauntingly suggested on Wednesday that the US was negotiating with itself.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly denied that it is involved in talks with the US regarding an end to the hostilities, even as Trump has insisted that negotiations “with the right people” in Iran were well underway.

In remarks to state media, the top spokesperson for Iran’s joint military command, Ebrahim Zolfaqari, questioned whether “the level of your inner struggle reached the stage of you negotiating with yourself?״

“People like us can never get along with people like you,” he said in the pre-recorded video statement. “The strategic power you used to talk about has turned into a strategic failure.”

“Your era of empty promises has come to an end,” continued Zolfaqari. “As we have always said… no one like us will make a deal with you. Not now. Not ever.”

Zolfaqari also warned that US investments won’t regain their value and prewar energy prices will not return as long as Washington does not accept that it is the Iranian armed forces who guarantee regional stability.

Iran’s leadership has previously said it cannot negotiate with the US, as Washington has attacked the country twice during high-level negotiations in the past two years, the first being in June 2025 amid Israel’s 12-day war with the Islamic Republic.

Iran had a “very bad experience with American diplomacy,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told India Today on Tuesday.

There was no dialogue or negotiations taking place with Washington, as Iran’s armed forces are focused on defending the country, he insisted.

Still, two Pakistani officials said on Wednesday that Iran had received Washington’s 15-point proposal to end the war.

As previously reported, the officials said the proposal touched on sanctions relief, civilian nuclear cooperation, a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, missile limits and access for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to release the details.

An Egyptian official involved in mediation efforts between Iran and the US described the 15 points put forward by the Americans as “a comprehensive deal” to reach a truce in the war.

The official likewise said the proposal includes restrictions on Iran’s missile program and its support for armed groups, as well as allowing traffic to flow through the Strait of Hormuz. However, the proposal “is being treated” as a base for further negotiations between the nations, he added.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the yet-publicized details of the proposal, said Iranian officials remain “very skeptical” of the Trump administration.

The official likened the 15-point plan to Gaza ceasefire’s 20-point plan, which means it requires “immense efforts to hammer out the details if there is an agreement from both sides to sit down and negotiate.”

Trump first announced that the US was negotiating with Iran on Monday, as he pushed off the two-day deadline he had previously given for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened.

He had threatened to destroy Iran’s power infrastructure if the regime did not reopen the key oil route within the 48-hour timeframe.

On Monday, Trump said he had postponed those strikes for five days to allow for more negotiations, before announcing on Tuesday that Tehran had given him a “very big present worth a tremendous amount of oil,” relating to the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran, in a message circulated by the International Maritime Organization shortly afterward, assured safe passage to “non-hostile vessels” going through the strait, the gateway for one-fifth of the world’s oil.

Iran had already, in recent days, said it was not targeting friendly nations, although many vessels have shied away as insurance companies refuse to take risks.

The benchmark price of crude oil dropped close to six percent after the latest developments.

The effective closure of the waterway has created the worst energy supply shock in history, sent fuel prices soaring, and disrupted global aviation.

Israel launched its campaign against Iran, alongside the US, to degrade the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, distance threats posed by Iran — including its nuclear and ballistic missile programs — and “create the conditions” for the Iranian people to topple the regime, the military and other Israeli leaders have said.

Since the war began on February 28, 15 Israeli civilians and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel in Iranian ballistic missile attacks, along with four Palestinians in the West Bank.

More than 400 ballistic missiles have been launched from Iran at Israel since the start of the war, with the military reporting an interception rate of 92% of attacks heading for populated areas and key infrastructure. Thousands more missiles and drones have been fired from Iran at the Gulf states, which are home to US military bases and assets.

In all, eight missiles carrying conventional warheads with hundreds of kilograms of explosives have struck populated areas in Israel, causing extensive damage in six cases. There have also been more than 30 incidents of missiles carrying cluster bomb warheads hitting populated areas, with over 150 separate impact sites.

In the same period, the Israeli Air Force has conducted hundreds of waves of strikes in Iran, dropping over 13,000 bombs on Iranian regime and military sites, including air defense systems, ballistic missile launchers, weapon production sites, nuclear facilities, and various headquarters.

The IDF has estimated that some 5,000 Iranian soldiers have been killed in Israeli strikes, along with tens of thousands more wounded, many of them members of the internal security forces and Basij paramilitary force.

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