Talks still uncertain

Iran is considering attending peace talks with the United States in Pakistan, a senior Iranian official told Reuters yesterday, following moves by Islamabad to end a US blockade of Iran’s ports, a major hurdle for Tehran to rejoin peace efforts.

However, the official stressed that no decision had been made.

Adding to the uncertainty, a source told Reuters that Vice President JD Vance was still in the US, denying reports that he was already on his way to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad for talks.

With a two-week ceasefire set to expire this week, the senior Iranian official said Tehran was “positively reviewing” its participation, but no final decision had been made. The comments conveyed a clear change of tone from earlier statements, ruling out attendance and pledging to retaliate for US aggression.

The Iranian official said mediator Pakistan was making positive efforts to end the US blockade and ensure Iran’s participation.

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The ceasefire had appeared in jeopardy after the US said it had seized an Iranian cargo ship that tried to run its blockade and Tehran vowed to retaliate.

A Pakistani security source said Pakistan’s key mediator, Field Marshal Asim Munir, had told US President Donald Trump the blockade was an obstacle to talks, and that Trump had promised to consider ending it.

The US was hoping to start negotiations in Pakistan shortly before the ceasefire expires, with sweeping security preparations under way in Islamabad.

However, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said that “unconstructive & contradictory signals from American officials carry a bitter message; they seek Iran’s surrender.”

“Iranians do not submit to force,” he added on X.

Meanwhile, a senior Pakistani government official told Reuters yesterday that Pakistan is confident it can get Iran to attend talks with the US.

“We have received a positive signal from Iran. Things are fluid, but we are trying that they should be here when we start the talks tomorrow or a day after,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Trump yesterday said he believed that a nuclear deal the US is currently negotiating with Iran will be better than a 2015 international agreement to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.

“The DEAL that we are making with Iran will be FAR BETTER than the JCPOA, commonly referred to as ‘The Iran Nuclear Deal’,” Trump wrote in a social media post after concerns expressed by Democrats and some nuclear experts that he is rushing negotiations on a highly complex topic.

During his first White House term, Trump in 2018 withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed to by Iran, the United States and world powers, calling it “the worst deal ever.”

“I am under no pressure whatsoever, although, it will all happen, relatively quickly!” Trump added in a Truth Social post.

Trump announced the two-week ceasefire with Iran on April 7, and has not specified when precisely it ends.

A Pakistani source involved in the talks said it would expire at 8:00pm ET on Wednesday, which would be midnight GMT or 3:30 am Thursday in Iran.

The US has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran lifted and then reimposed its own blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which typically handles roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied gas supply.

Oil prices rose around 5 percent as traders remained fearful that the ceasefire would collapse. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was at a virtual standstill with just three crossings in the space of 12 hours, according to shipping data.

The US military said it had fired on an Iranian-flagged cargo ship headed towards Iran’s Bandar Abbas port on Sunday after a six-hour standoff, disabling its engines. US Central Command released video showing

Marines descending ropes from helicopters onto the vessel.

The vessel is likely to have been carrying what Washington deems dual-use items that could be used by the military, maritime security sources said yesterday.

Iran’s military said the ship had been travelling from China and accused the US of “armed piracy”, according to state media. They said they were ready to confront US forces over the “blatant aggression”, but were constrained by the presence of crew members’ families on board.

China, the main buyer of Iranian crude, expressed concern over the “forced interception”, and Chinese President Xi Jinping called for ships to resume passage through the strait as normal and for the conflict to be resolved through political and diplomatic channels, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Moscow yesterday called for the US-Iran ceasefire to be maintained and for diplomatic efforts to continue, after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with his Iranian counterpart, a close Russian ally.

French President Emmanuel Macron also called for the US and Iran to de-escalate.

“Our position remains the same. We need to settle things through diplomacy. Everyone must calm down,” Macron said during a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Trump warned on Sunday that the US would destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran if it rejected his terms, continuing a recent pattern of such threats.

Iran has said that if the United States were to attack its civilian infrastructure, it would strike power stations and desalination plants in its Gulf Arab neighbours.

Amid the tensions, Iran reopened its main Imam Khomeini and Mehrabad airports in capital Tehran, yesterday, the country’s aviation authority said.

Pakistan geared up to host the talks despite uncertainty over whether they would go ahead. Nearly 20,000 security personnel have been deployed across the capital Islamabad, a government official and a security official said.

Despite the public denials, Iranian sources had on Sunday indicated a delegation was expected in Pakistan today. It could include the parliamentary speaker and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said Araghchi and his Pakistani counterpart, Ishaq Dar, spoke by phone on Sunday and discussed “the need for continued dialogue and engagement as essential to resolving the current issues as soon as possible”.

Analysts say the gap between Iran’s public stance and private signalling reflects a deliberate strategy.

“This gap reflects a dual-track negotiation strategy,” Seyed Mojtaba Jalalzadeh, an international relations analyst based in Tehran, told Al Jazeera. “At the public level, Iran maintains a hardline position to preserve domestic legitimacy and increase its leverage; at the nonpublic level, by dispatching a team to Islamabad, it signals that it has not abandoned diplomacy but is instead testing its conditions.”

Thousands of people have been killed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran and in an Israeli invasion of Lebanon conducted in parallel since the war began on February 28, where a truce is also currently in place. Washington will host a second round of ambassador-level talks between Lebanon and Israel on Thursday as part of efforts to protect a fragile ceasefire.