Tehran, Iran - Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that mediators striving for a peace deal between the US and Iran had not travelled at all since the "shock" of the midterm elections, though President Donald Trump says fresh strikes on Iran are now "highly unlikely."
"We now have to see how long it will take for them to digest these results, in order to determine how we are going to move forward," the top Iranian diplomat told state TV following the elections in which the Republican Party of President Donald Trump suffered heavy losses.
Various regional powers, including Qatar and Pakistan, have been trying for months without success to bring a definitive halt to the war launched by the United States and Israel in late February.
Outright fighting has largely subsided, but Iran continues in its efforts to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, vital to global energy supplies, while the US Navy maintains its own counterblockade of Iranian ports.
"For the past few days, there has been no more travel (by mediators), and the reason for this is the shock that the election results in the United States have caused to everyone."
He said it would "take some time before the atmosphere is favorable for the resumption of mediator travel" and called for patience.
Earlier, Aragchi posted on X: "American voters have made their choice. Time for the White House to make its own."
He called on Washington to accept previously articulated Iranian demands or "choose war, and see our alert and battle-hardened warriors rain down hell."
Trump, in an interview with CNN on Sunday, cast doubt on renewed fighting with Iran, saying that it was "highly unlikely" so long as talks progressed.
"The answer is highly unlikely it's going to be necessary... I would if necessary, but we hit them really hard," Trump said, while warning that any decision to resume hostilities "depends on whether or not they sign a very strong agreement."
In September, Iran proposed a seven-day plan to reopen the strait, with demands including ending the war on all fronts, unfreezing Iranian assets, lifting oil sanctions, and ending its counter-blockade of Iranian ports.
It later proposed doing so in just two days, an offer Aragchi repeated in his X post on Sunday.