US sets out four conditions for Iran peace as aircraft carrier en route to Gulf

"We communicated with the Iranians yesterday, and one of the things we were concerned about was the killers that were rumored to be on the way — mass hangings, and that’s been shut down.”

Trump himself declared during an Oval Office briefing on Wednesday that the US had it “on good authority” that the “killing has stopped”, after some human rights groups reported that more than 2,000 had been killed during the protests, most of them civilian demonstrators.

But Witkoff insisted that Iran would have to accept limitations in four key areas to ensure a diplomatic settlement.

He listed these as “nuclear enrichment; missiles — they have to cut back on their inventory; the actual [nuclear] material that they have, which is roughly 2000 kilograms enriched anywhere between 3.67 percent and 60%; and the proxies [including Hamas and Hezbollah]”.

"If they want to come back to the League of Nations, we can solve those four problems diplomatically, then that would be a great resolution. The alternative is a bad one,” he added.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global nuclear watchdog, estimates that Iran is in possession of around 400kg of 60 per cent enriched uranium, which can be converted to the 90 per cent enrichment threshold to be considered “weapons grade”.

This stock is believed to remain largely intact despite US strikes using “bunker-busting” munitions on Iranian nuclear facilities last June.

Witkoff’s comments came as the US diverted an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, to the Arabian Gulf.

It is expected to reach its new posting, which would place it within striking distance of Iran, within a week.

At the same time, though, The Guardian reported that Trump had decided against launching military action after a last-minute intervention from Turkey and several Gulf states.

Officials from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which have warm relations with the Trump administration, reportedly warned that such strikes could lead to a protracted conflict in the Middle East.

Given Trump ran on a foreign policy platform of “no new wars”, and his evident reticence to entangle US forces in drawn-out conflicts as in Ukraine and Afghanistan, these warnings from allies reportedly helped persuade the president that diplomacy was the way forward.