JD Vance warns Iran not to ‘play’ as he departs for peace talks in Pakistan; Donald Trump demands reopening of Hormuz
Alisa Odenheimer, Sheriff Tarek And Eltaf Necefizada
Updated ,first published
Jerusalem/Cairo/London: US Vice President JD Vance warned Tehran not to “play” with the US as he traveled to Islamabad for talks aimed at ending the war with Iran.
“We’re looking forward to the negotiations. I think it will be positive. Of course we’ll see,” Vance said as he boarded Air Force Two en route to Pakistan. “If they try to play us, they will find that the negotiating team is not that understanding.”
Vance said US President Donald Trump gave them “some pretty clear guidelines” for the negotiations.
Trump has demanded Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, increasing pressure on Tehran ahead of talks to turn a fragile ceasefire into a lasting peace.
The ceasefire remains shaky. Kuwait reported large-scale drone strikes on “vital” facilities by Friday and accused Iran and its proxy groups of violating a ceasefire declared by Washington and Tehran this week. The war has killed thousands of people and damaged energy infrastructure in the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
US and Iranian delegations will meet in Pakistan on Saturday and shipping via Hormuz, which processed about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas before the war, will be a central sticking point.
“Iran is doing a very bad, even dishonorable thing by allowing oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is not our agreement!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Thursday (Washington time). “You will see the Oil start flowing with or without the help of Iran and to me it makes no difference either way.”
The US president also warned Iran not to charge tankers passing through Hormuz.
Traffic in the strategic waterway has ground to a halt since Feb. 28, when the US-Israeli war against Iran began, and there has been little sign of a meaningful recovery since the ceasefire began.
Lebanon, where Israel is waging a parallel war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, remains another flashpoint. While Iran says the United States bears the responsibility of stopping the conflict there, U.S. officials say the country is not part of the ceasefire agreement.
Trump still said he was “optimistic” about a deal with Iran.
The US president described Iran’s leaders in a telephone interview with NBC News as “much more reasonable” than public comments suggest.
He also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will not overdo it” by launching airstrikes on Lebanon after the two leaders spoke by phone on Wednesday.
Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian said Israeli attacks in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Tehran-backed Hezbollah militants, were a “clear violation” of the ceasefire and would make planned peace talks “meaningless.”
While Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key mediator, initially said the ceasefire included Lebanon, US and Israeli officials stated otherwise.
Netanyahu’s decision to open direct talks with Lebanon sent oil prices lower as the United States agreed on Thursday to host a meeting next week to discuss ongoing ceasefire talks involving Israel and Lebanon, according to a US State Department official.
However, the Israeli leader also reiterated his stance that the ongoing attacks in Lebanon are not part of the US-Iran ceasefire agreement.
While shipowners are waiting for a statement regarding the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. Traffic is still a fraction of pre-war levels, although state media reported that the Iranian Ports and Maritime Organization had issued two safe routes for shipping.
Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, whose father was killed in the early days of the war, said on Telegram that Iran would “definitely bring the management of the Strait of Hormuz to a new phase,” but it is unclear whether he was referring to previous Iranian demands to retain control of the waterway, which the United States has rejected.
Khamenei also reiterated that Iran wants war compensation; This is likely a non-starter for U.S. negotiators.
Geopolitical developments have raised new doubts about the possibility of a long-term agreement to end the war engulfing the Middle East.
The United States and Iran appear to have paused most attacks following ongoing clashes in the region on Wednesday. However, on Thursday evening, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that new attacks were carried out by Iran and its proxies.
According to Press TV, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the Iranian armed forces have not launched drones or missiles into any country since the ceasefire began.
Saudi Arabia, where a major oil pipeline was attacked the day before, has lost more than half a million barrels of oil production capacity per day due to Iran’s attacks, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
Strikes this week at a pump station serving the vital East-West Pipeline reduced daily production by 700,000 barrels, the agency said.
Oil prices rose towards the end of Thursday’s session on news of a decrease in production capacity.
Brent rose nearly 1 percent to almost $97 a barrel in trading in London on Friday. Asian stock markets rose, extending their first weekly gains since the conflict began. Investors were cautiously hopeful ahead of weekend talks.
Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon risks undermining negotiations. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the United States is responsible for fulfilling its commitments to stop the war in all areas, including Lebanon.
The Israeli army on Thursday told residents in eight Beirut neighborhoods to leave the area ahead of attacks, following a major operation the previous day that left more than 300 people dead.
While only intermittent attacks were reported in Iran and the Middle East, international attention turned to Lebanon; Here Israel revived its campaign against Hezbollah after the militant group began firing rockets at the Israel-Lebanon border at the beginning of the war.
The Lebanese group, founded in 1982 in response to Israel’s occupation of the south of the country, was inspired by the revolution in Shiite-majority Iran three years earlier. He became Iran’s most powerful proxy, helping it deter its enemies and expand its influence in the Middle East.
It is Iran’s most important ally in a network of affiliated groups that include the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza.
Hezbollah and Israel were previously in a full-scale conflict for nearly two months in 2024, with a temporary ceasefire declared in November of that year. The Lebanese government promised to disarm the militant group but failed. Hezbollah refused.
The war in the Middle East has claimed the lives of more than 5,500 people, according to governments and non-governmental organizations. According to estimates by the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, more than 3,600 people have been killed in Iran, while the government says more than 1,700 people have died in Lebanon.
Israel announced that it had killed more than 1,400 Hezbollah militants, including 200 on Wednesday.
Government reports show Israel reported nearly three dozen deaths, and a similar number were killed in Gulf Arab countries. There were also several dozen casualties in Iraq. According to US Central Command, 13 US soldiers were killed.
Bloomberg, A.P.
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