Iran Sends 14-Point Peace Plan via Pakistan

Iran sent a 14-point response to a US peace proposal through a Pakistani intermediary on Sunday, the Tasnim news agency reported. The Iranian reply addresses a nine-point Washington document and centres on "ending the war"; it asks for guarantees against further military action, the withdrawal of US forces from Iran's perimeter, the lifting of the naval blockade and sanctions, the unfreezing of Iranian assets, compensation, and an end to hostilities across multiple fronts including Lebanon. Tehran insisted on a 30-day timeline against Washington's two-month ceasefire framing. President Donald Trump described the US blockade — in force since 13 April against Iranian oil shipments and at the centre of the global supply shock — as "a very friendly blockade" that "nobody is even challenging," and on Truth Social said Iran has "not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity." Iran's Vice Foreign Minister Kasem Gharibabadi said Tehran was "ready for both options," and Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Niksad announced legislation to bring the Strait of Hormuz under full military authority, with transit fees and a ban on Israel-linked ships.

European foreign-policy lines hardened in parallel. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, after a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghtschi, demanded Tehran "fully and verifiably renounce nuclear weapons" and immediately reopen Hormuz. The US State Department approved more than $4 billion in Patriot missile-defence systems for Qatar on emergency grounds and over $8.6 billion in further sales to Israel, Kuwait and the UAE — packages still requiring Congress. Israel separately bought two new fighter squadrons (F-35s and F-15IAs); Defence Minister Israel Katz called the Iran war proof of the air force's "decisive role." The Pentagon, on the same day, confirmed the withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany and cancelled intermediate-range missile deployments to the country — a dual decision German analysts read as a strategic reorientation toward Asia and a benefit to Moscow ("Der sieht, wie die NATO erodiert"). Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called NATO disintegration the "greatest threat" to transatlantic unity. Ramstein's mayor Ralf Hechler warned the troop pullout — 10,000–12,000 residents and more than $2 billion a year — would deal his region a "fatal" blow.

Ukraine bore the war's other front. A Russian drone hit a petrol station in Krynychky hromada, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, at about 8 a.m. moments after roughly forty children had disembarked from a holiday tour bus, wounding six including a 10-year-old boy and a 21-year-old pregnant woman; overnight Russia fired 268 drones and an Iskander-M, of which Ukrainian air defences downed 249. Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, under commander Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, struck a Pantsir-S1 in occupied Donetsk, a Tor in Luhansk and two P-18 radar stations across Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. The Institute for the Study of War on May 2 logged a net Russian territorial loss of 116 square kilometres in April 2026 — the first since Ukraine's August 2024 Kursk incursion — with the average daily Russian gain falling from 9.76 km² to 2.9 km² year on year. Tusk dismissed Putin's proposal for a one-day 9 May parade ceasefire as "absurd."

The war's secondary economic effects landed on civil infrastructure. Heathrow warned passenger numbers will fall for the rest of 2025 as Middle East travel demand stays soft; UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander authorised airlines to cancel or merge summer flights two weeks ahead, with the UK importing 65 percent of its jet fuel and the IEA warning of European shortages by June. Anadolu's analysis of Flightradar24 data showed at least twelve US military transports en route to the Middle East on May 2, several from Germany, alongside KC-46 and KC-135 tankers and an RC-135W signals aircraft near Bahrain. SKW Stickstoffwerke, Germany's largest urea producer, ran its Wittenberg site at full capacity after the Hormuz closure removed about a third of global fertiliser flow — gas-fired and now sourcing from Norway, the Netherlands and the United States — while German farmer Gerhard Geywitz reported fertiliser prices up 50 percent. China's Commerce Ministry on Saturday issued a prohibition order blocking US sanctions on five Chinese refineries accused of buying Iranian oil — including Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian), sanctioned by the US Treasury on 24 April — calling the measures a violation of international law. The US economy grew 2 percent in Q1 with inflation at 3.3 percent, a near-two-year high pulled up by oil; the US Justice Department lost a sixth voter-file suit when federal judge Susan Brnovich threw out its case against Arizona.

Diplomacy ran beneath the war on a calmer parallel track. President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Yerevan for a two-day state visit folded into a European Political Community meeting and the first-ever EU–Armenia summit, expected to sign a strategic partnership with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan; Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz attended the same EPC summit, becoming the first sitting Turkish vice president to visit Armenia. The afterglow of King Charles III's US state visit held: a senior royal aide cited twelve standing ovations for the Congress address, a YouGov poll of 4,500 found 74 percent of Britons approved of the visit, and Trump scrapped US tariffs on Scotch whisky as a parting gesture. The Trump administration is exploring military options on Cuba, Politico reported, while pushing primarily for economic concessions — privatisation of state enterprises, expanded foreign investment and energy purchases from US firms — with President Miguel Díaz-Canel saying there was "no justification" for an attack.