The United States and Iran each warned they were ready for war as the clock ticked down on Tuesday for a ceasefire, with uncertainty over talks that President Donald Trump had announced would resume in Pakistan.
The White House said Vice President JD Vance was about to fly back to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, which was preparing for a second round of talks to end the war that has engulfed the Middle East and rattled global markets.
But Tehran’s cleric-led government refused to confirm it would take part and accused the United States of violating the ceasefire by blocking Iranian ports and seizing a ship.
“By imposing a blockade and violating the ceasefire, Trump wants to turn this negotiating table into a surrender table or justify renewed hostilities as he sees fit,” said Iran’s powerful parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led delegations to the talks two weeks ago in Pakistan.
“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the last two weeks we have prepared to show new cards on the battlefield,” he wrote in X.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned that it would target any ship attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without permission.
Trump has similarly accused Tehran of violating the ceasefire by harassing ships in the key strait, the transit passage for about a fifth of the world’s oil that Iran had closed all but in retaliation for the war launched on February 28 by the United States and Israel.
The canal in peacetime sees about 120 daily transits, according to Lloyd’s List, a shipping industry intelligence site.
On Tuesday, the site reported that more than 20 so-called Iranian “shadow ships” had transited the US blockade.
In one of a series of posts on his Social Truth platform, Trump insisted the blockade was “absolutely destroying” Iran and said it will not end “until there is a ‘Deal'” in which the United States is pressing for Iranian concessions on its disputed nuclear program.
“Agreed” to participate in the talks
Trump told PBS News that Iran was “supposed to be there” at the talks in Pakistan.
“We agreed to be there,” he said, warning that if the ceasefire ends “then a lot of bombs start going off.”
He separately told Bloomberg News that it was “highly unlikely” he would extend the two-week ceasefire.
Based on the timing of its start, the truce theoretically expires overnight on Tuesday, Tehran time, although in his comments to Bloomberg, Trump said the end was a day later, on Wednesday evening Washington time.
Oil prices fell on Tuesday as most stocks rose on continued hopes of a deal to end the US-Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, although Tehran said it had not decided whether to participate in peace talks.
Despite some normalcy returning to Tehran during the ceasefire, residents of the city spoke to the base in Paris AFP journalists said that the situation was not rosy at all.
“Let’s see what happens by Tuesday,” said a 30-year-old doctor on condition of anonymity.
Saghar, 39, said there was little hope for Iranians squeezed by the government and the impact of the war, adding that “the economy is terrible.”
The new Israel-Lebanon talks
A separate ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon was announced on Friday and included Hezbollah, whose Iran-backed missile launch drew Lebanon into the war.
Israel and Lebanon, which do not have diplomatic relations, will hold a second round of talks Thursday in Washington, a State Department official said. AFP.
Sporadic violence continued and the Israeli military warned civilians not to return to dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, claiming Hezbollah’s activities were violating the ceasefire.
The UN Security Council on Monday condemned the killing of a French peacekeeper in Lebanon, whose death France blamed on Hezbollah.
The Frenchman was killed and three others wounded when their unit was ambushed on Saturday while en route to a UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) post cut off from fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said AFP that his group would work to break the “yellow line” Israel has imposed in the south, although he said he wanted the “ceasefire to continue.”
Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 2,387 people since the start of the war, a Lebanese government body said in its latest count.
Another major issue in the US-Iran negotiations has been Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which Trump said on Friday he had agreed to hand over.
But Iran’s foreign ministry has said the stockpile, believed to have been buried by US bombing in last June’s 12-day war with Israel, “would not be transferred anywhere”.
Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said handing over uranium “has never been raised as an option” in talks with US negotiators.
(sma)
