Tehran has ‘no plans to participate’ in talks with US, state media reports | US-Israel war on Iran

Tehran is not currently planning to participate in new talks with the United States, Iranian state media reported Sunday evening, a few hours after President Donald Trump announced he would send negotiators to Islamabad.

“There are currently no plans to participate in the next round of Iran-US talks,” state broadcaster IRIB said, citing Iranian sources.

The United States had announced that it would send a delegation to Pakistan on Monday for a possible round of negotiations aimed at ending the US-Israeli war in Iran, after Donald Trump repeated his threats against Iran’s infrastructure if Iran did not accept a deal.

The return of a US delegation to Islamabad, led by vice president J.D. Vance, along with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, came after Iran imposed strict restrictions on commercial ship passage in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, reversing an agreement reached hours earlier to reopen the strategic waterway after the United States refused to lift its naval blockade.

“Iran stated that its failure to participate in the second round of talks was due to Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant changes of stance, repeated contradictions and the ongoing naval blockade, which it sees as a violation of the ceasefire,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency wrote.

The war, which is in its eighth week, has killed thousands of people in Iran and Lebanon and caused oil prices to rise due to the closure of the strait.

Iran’s chief negotiator and parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in an interview broadcast on state television late Saturday that “there will be no retreat in the field of diplomacy” while acknowledging that a wide gulf remains between the parties.

Trump said Sunday that any talks in Islamabad before a fragile two-week ceasefire ends Wednesday are the “last chance” for Iran to agree to a peace deal.

“If Iran does not sign this deal, the whole country is getting blown up,” he told Fox News. Trump later repeated his threat earlier in the day that the United States would specifically destroy Iran’s power plants and bridges if it did not sign the deal.

Trump said that the agreement offered by the USA, which included reopening the strait and preventing Iran from having enriched uranium, was “a very fair and reasonable agreement” and promised to disable “every single power plant” and “every single bridge” if Iran did not agree.

“NO MORE MR NICE GUY!” Embers wrote at Truth Social. “They will fall quickly, they will fall easily, and if they do not accept the DEAL, it will be my honor to do to Iran what other presidents have had to do to Iran over the last 47 years.”

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the country’s deputy prime minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, spoke to Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, during a phone call on Sunday that included “the need for continued dialogue and engagement necessary to resolve existing issues as soon as possible to promote peace and stability in the region and beyond.”

A telephone conversation was also planned between Iranian president Massoud Pezeshkian and Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Washington’s UN envoy Mike Waltz told ABC News he believes a new round of talks would lead to an “incredibly important” outcome.

For Tehran, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, implemented after the United States and Israel launched the Iran war on February 28 during talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, is perhaps its most powerful weapon inflicting political pain on Trump.

The US president’s renewed threat to strike Iran’s power plants and bridges fits with such warnings made throughout the war, many of which preceded moves to de-escalate tensions. Two weeks ago, Iran suddenly declared a ceasefire, just hours after declaring that “the entire civilization will die tonight.”

Trump accused Iran of violating a two-week ceasefire by opening fire on two merchant ships in the strait on Saturday after a brief increase in attempts to pass.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the US blockade of Iranian ports and coastline violated the ceasefire and was “illegal and criminal”.

“Intentionally inflicting collective punishment on the Iranian people amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity,” Baghaei wrote on social media.

About one-fifth of the world’s oil trade normally passes through the strait, and the global energy crisis is in danger of deepening as the war drags on. Iran continued to insist on Sunday that ships would not pass as long as the US blockade continued.

Early Sunday morning, two liquefied petroleum gas tankers were seen on ship tracking sites heading east towards the strait, but the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Iranian armed forces turned them back.

The United States forcibly seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that was trying to bypass the US naval blockade, Trump said on Sunday.

In his post on social media, he said that the ship was warned to stop by the US Navy guided missile destroyer in the Gulf of Oman, but no warning was given.

“Our Navy ship blew a hole in the engine room, stopping them in their tracks,” Trump wrote.

He said that the cargo ship named Touska was under the supervision of US sailors and that “they saw what was on the ship”.

Friday’s announcement that the strait would reopen caused the steepest one-day drop in oil prices in recent years, while stock markets rose to all-time highs in anticipation of the imminent end to the disruption. However, since the strait has not yet reopened, markets may face new fluctuations when they reopen on Monday.

Pressure is mounting on Trump to find a way out of the war as his fellow Republicans prepare to defend a narrow majority in Congress in the November midterm elections.

In addition to the two-week ceasefire in Iran, Israel and Lebanon also declared a separate ceasefire last week. More than 1 million Lebanese have been displaced by the Israeli invasion, which Israel says is pursuing Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite armed group allied with Iran, that has crossed the border and opened fire in support of Tehran.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report