Iran not planning to attend talks with US in Pakistan
WASHINGTON—Iran is not currently planning to attend talks with the United States, state media said, after President Donald Trump ordered US negotiators to travel to Pakistan on Monday, just days before a ceasefire in the Middle East expires.
The ongoing US blockade of Iranian ports has been a significant sticking point, an issue further complicated by an American destroyer on Sunday firing on and seizing an Iranian ship that tried to evade it.
Tehran said it would retaliate with Tasnim news agency reporting that Iran had sent drones in the direction of US military ships after its vessel was seized.
State broadcaster IRIB on Sunday cited Iranian sources as saying “there are currently no plans to participate in the next round of Iran-US talks.”
The Fars and Tasnim news agencies had earlier cited anonymous sources as saying “the overall atmosphere cannot be assessed as very positive,” adding that lifting the US blockade was a precondition for negotiations.
State-run IRNA meanwhile pointed to the blockade and Washington’s “unreasonable and unrealistic demands,” saying that “in these circumstances, there is no clear prospect of fruitful negotiations.”
Iran and the United States, along with Israel, are just days away from the end of the two-week ceasefire that halted the Middle East war, ignited by surprise US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.
There has so far been only a single, 21-hour negotiating session held in Islamabad on April 11 that ended inconclusively, though groundwork for fresh talks continued afterwards.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it,” Trump said in a post on Sunday, while also renewing his threats against Iran’s infrastructure if a deal is not made.
US fires on Iranian ship
Trump has been under pressure to find an off-ramp since Tehran moved early in the war to choke off the Strait of Hormuz.
The vital waterway is a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas in peacetime, and its closure has hammered the global economy and roiled markets.
Having failed to force it open again, Trump countered with a US naval blockade on Iranian ports in an attempt to cut off Tehran’s oil revenues.
On Sunday, he announced that a massive Iranian-flagged cargo ship “tried to get past our Naval Blockade, and it did not go well for them.”
The ISNA news agency later cited a spokesperson for Iran’s central command center as warning that “the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy and the US military.”
Iran had briefly reopened the strait on Friday in recognition of an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in Lebanon, but closed it again the following day in response to the United States maintaining its blockade.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei on Sunday said the blockade was “a violation” of the ceasefire and illegal collective punishment of the Iranian people.
A handful of oil and gas tankers had crossed the strait early on Saturday during the brief reopening, but by early Sunday morning tracking data showed the waterway empty of shipping.
