Updated

Diplomacy between Washington and Tehran remains stuck amid hardening rhetoric on both sides, with Iranian officials and analysts warning relations are sliding back to 'square one.' Iran has reportedly received a US response to its seven-day trust-building proposal and an official reply to its broader offer to end the war, but officials in Tehran are divided over whether to continue talks, with President Pezeshkian at one point calling negotiations 'meaningless.' Qatari mediators and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, currently in Pakistan, are pressing separately with both sides to revive a peace process. Iranian spokespeople have stressed Iran is not afraid of negotiations and will use 'all diplomatic capacity' to defend its interests, even as parliamentary figures dismiss Trump's statements on the Strait of Hormuz as irrelevant bluster. Analysts describe a stalemate in which military and economic pressure continue to intensify in parallel with intermittent, indirect contacts.