Iran’s military threatened on Wednesday to shut down Red Sea trade unless the United States lifted its naval blockade on Tehran’s ports, saying the ceasefire was at risk.
The warning came as a Pakistani delegation arrived in Tehran bearing a new message from Washington after a first attempt at a peace deal fell flat, with president Donald Trump indicating talks could resume this week.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi welcomed a Pakistani delegation led by army chief Asim Munir, days after failed US-Iran talks in Islamabad to end the Middle East war.
Araghchi’s Telegram channel posted several photos of him welcoming the Pakistani official, saying: ‘Munir arrives in Tehran.’
The Pakistan military’s media wing also confirmed his arrival in Iran, adding that interior minister Mohsin Naqvi was also there ‘as part of the on-going mediation efforts’.
Iranian state TV had reported earlier that the high-ranking Pakistani delegation would bring a new message from Washington and was due to discuss a second round of talks.
Iran had confirmed on Wednesday that the sides had kept talking via Pakistan after a first round of talks in the Pakistani capital fell flat over the weekend.
‘Since Sunday, when the Iranian delegation returned to Tehran, several messages have been exchanged through Pakistan,’ foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a weekly press briefing.
‘Today, we are very likely to receive a Pakistani delegation as a continuation of the discussions in Islamabad,’ he added.
US vice president JD Vance, who led last weekend’s abortive talks, said the Islamic republic was being offered a ‘grand bargain’ to end the six-week war and address the decades-old dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Stocks rose and crude dropped as markets eyed chances of a deal to get oil flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz — choked by Iranian forces since the US-Israeli offensive began, and now the focus of the US blockade.
But for now, both sides seemed intent on keeping up the pressure.
‘Either this is a big bluff on both sides and we are on the edge of a deal, or the markets are terribly miscalculating and we are about to witness a major economic event as the double blockade... continues on,’ said Phillips O’Brien, strategic studies professor at the University of St Andrews.
Washington has sought to turn the screws on Tehran with a blockade of its ports, with US Central Command claiming to have ‘completely halted economic trade going into and out of Iran by sea’.
The picture based on recent maritime tracking data in the Strait of Hormuz was less clear-cut, and Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported shipping has continued from southern Iran.
But the head of Iran’s military central command centre warned a US failure to lift the blockade would constitute ‘a prelude’ to violating the two-week ceasefire struck on April 8.
Unless Washington relents, Iran’s armed forces ‘will not allow any exports or imports to continue in the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Red Sea,’ said Ali Abdollahi.
Speaking to the New York Post on Tuesday, Trump said a new round of talks could take place in Pakistan ‘over the next two days’, while telling Fox Business the war was ‘very close to being over’.
Trump has insisted any deal must permanently bar Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He launched the war on February 28 arguing that Tehran was rushing to complete an atomic bomb, an assertion not backed by the UN nuclear watchdog.
Reports said Washington had sought a 20-year suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme during the Islamabad talks, and that Iran, in turn, proposed suspending its nuclear activity for five years — an offer US officials rejected.
Tehran has always insisted its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes and its foreign ministry said Wednesday that Iran’s right to enrich uranium was ‘indisputable’, although the level of enrichment was ‘negotiable’.
The US vice president said Tuesday that Trump had pledged to ‘make Iran thrive’ if it committed to ‘not having a nuclear weapon’.
‘That’s the kind of Trumpian grand bargain that the president has put on the table,’ Vance said, adding: ‘Man, we’re going to keep on negotiating and try to make it happen.’
British prime minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday said he would not ‘yield’ to pressure to join the Iran war after Trump threatened to scrap a UK trade deal.
‘We’re not going to get dragged into this war. It is not our war,’ Starmer told parliament.
‘I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to yield. It is not in our national interest to join this war,’ the Labour leader added.
The UN secretary-general on Tuesday called for the resumption of ‘serious negotiations’ to end the war in the Middle East, saying the crisis has ‘no military solution.’
Antonio Guterres also told journalists at United Nations headquarters in New York that international freedom of navigation must be respected ‘by all parties’ in the Strait of Hormuz.
‘There is no military solution to this crisis. Peace agreements require persistent engagement and political will. Serious negotiations must resume,’ he said.
Stocks rose and crude dropped on hopes for a deal to get oil flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz — choked by Iranian forces since the US-Israeli offensive began in late February, and now the focus of the US blockade.
Analysts say Trump is aiming not only to cut off Iranian revenue but also to pressure China, the biggest buyer of Iran’s oil, to push it to reopen the strait.
In a nod to China’s potentially key role, Trump told Fox Business he had written to Xi Jinping asking him not to supply weapons to Tehran, and received the Chinese leader’s assurances that he was not doing so.
The finance ministers of 11 countries including Britain and Japan called Wednesday for ‘coordinated emergency support’ to help countries hit by disruptions from the war in the Middle East.
‘We call on the IMF and World Bank to provide a coordinated emergency support offer for countries in need, tailored to country circumstances and drawing on the full range and flexibility of their toolkits,’ the ministers said in a joint statement issued by the UK government.
‘Renewed hostilities, a widening of the conflict or continued disruption in the Strait of Hormuz would pose serious additional risks to global energy security, supply chains, and economic and financial stability,’ said the statement.
‘Even with a durable resolution of the conflict, impacts on growth, inflation and markets will persist.’
‘We reaffirm our unwavering support for Ukraine and our determination to maintain economic pressure on Russia,’ it said.
‘Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, continues to negatively impact the global economy. Russia must not benefit from this conflict, and as market conditions allow to avoid exacerbating disruptions to supply chains and energy prices, we will continue collaborating on ways to increase pressure.’
The countries that signed the statement were Australia, Finland, Ireland, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.
