Pakistani, Egyptian and Turkish mediators will continue talks with the US and Iran in the coming days. They want to hold another round before the ceasefire ends on April 21.
Politico writes about this, citing sources.
The US President Donald Trump is considering resuming strikes if the US naval blockade does not force Iran to change course, with possible targets including infrastructure he threatened to attack before the ceasefire was announced.
The blockade, like the US decision to withdraw from talks in Pakistan, is part of the negotiation process, the US official said. He said Trump wants to prevent Iran from using the Strait of Hormuz as leverage during the talks.
"We are not at a complete impasse. The door is not closed yet. Both sides are bargaining. It is a bazaar," the source said.
The American official agreed and added that a deal could be reached if Iran showed more flexibility and recognized that Islamabadʼs offer was the best it could hope for.
Iranʼs ambassador to Pakistan Reza Amiri Moghadam, who participated in the talks, wrote in X that the talks in Islamabad did not fail, but laid the foundation for a diplomatic process.
What went wrong during the negotiations?
The main differences during the 21-hour talks between the United States and Iran in Pakistan were over the nuclear program, sources said. In particular, the United States is demanding that Iran freeze uranium enrichment and give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Another dispute is the amount of frozen funds that Iran wants to receive from the US in exchange for nuclear concessions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the parties were “one step away from a deal” before the US “changed the rules of the game” — a claim that US officials do not directly confirm, but acknowledge that there has been progress.
War in the Middle East and negotiations between Iran and the US
On the morning of February 28, the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran. Iranʼs Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and almost the entire military leadership of the country — about 40 key high-ranking officials — were killed.
Iran, in response to the US and Israeli attacks, began shelling Arab countries and Israel. The war also halted tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost a fifth of the worldʼs oil exports passed. This led to a sharp increase in oil and gas prices.
On the night of April 8, Trump wrote that he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran. Later, Iran published a 10-point peace plan: under it, the parties would cease hostilities, the US would withdraw troops from the Middle East and would no longer attack Iranian bases, and ships would have limited access to the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks.
Iran would also be required to lift primary and secondary sanctions and compensate for losses. Iran would commit not to developing nuclear weapons, and the US would recognize Iranʼs right to enrich uranium.
But on the afternoon of April 8, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that ceasefire violations had been recorded in several places in the conflict zone in the Middle East.
Reuters sources reported that Iran had struck the East-West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which is currently the only channel for exporting crude oil from the country, and other facilities. Before that, Iran reported an American attack on the refinery on Laban Island and threatened to respond.
At the same time, Israel launched its largest attack on Lebanon since the start of the new war: in 10 minutes, the Israeli army attacked more than 100 sites of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, killing more than 350 people. Israel claims that the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, while Pakistani mediators wrote that the cessation of hostilities also applies to Lebanon.
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