The Guardian:

Iran has offered a deal with the US in which it would formally and permanently accept enhanced inspections of its nuclear programme, in return for the permanent lifting of US sanctions.

The offer was made by the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on a visit to New York. But it is unlikely to be warmly received by the Trump administration, which is currently demanding Iran make a range of sweeping concessions, including cessation of uranium enrichment and support for proxies and allies in the region.

Zarif insisted, however, that his offer was “a substantial move”.

“It’s not about photo ops. We are interested in substance,” he told reporters at the Iranian mission to the UN in New York on Thursday. “There are other substantial moves that can be made.”

He said: “If they [the Trump administration] are putting their money where their mouth is, they are going to do it. They don’t need a photo op. They don’t need a two-page document with a big signature.”

Iran has faced an steadily tightening US-driven oil embargo and severe banking sanctions since May last year, when Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA).

The embargo has triggered a standoff in the Gulf that has escalated dramatically in recent months, with sabotage attacks on foreign tankers, blamed on Iran by the US. In the latest incident on Thursday, Iran said it had seized a foreign-owned vessel suspected of being used for oil smuggling out of Iran.

Zarif dismissed the incident as a routine marine policing matter.

He said: “It’s not a tanker. It’s a small ship carrying a million litres, not a million barrels, of oil. We do it every other day. These are people who are smuggling our fuel. This is … one of the things that we do in the Persian Gulf, because of the heavy subsidies that we provide for our own fuel products.”

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