Iran says no decision yet on joining new US peace talks

Iran has not yet decided whether it will join a fresh round of peace talks with the United States, clouding efforts to prevent the Middle East war from flaring up again.

US President Donald Trump said he was dispatching negotiators to Pakistan for discussions aimed at ending a conflict that has engulfed the region and shaken global markets, even as he renewed threats to strike Iran’s infrastructure if no agreement is reached.

An initial round of talks in Islamabad earlier this month ended without a breakthrough, and both sides have since blamed each other for violating a temporary truce that is now entering its final days.

“We have no plans for the next round of negotiation, and no decision has been made in this regard,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.

Mr Trump has also accused Tehran of breaching the truce – due to expire overnight on Tuesday – by firing on vessels in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, a key trade artery that Iran has largely closed.

Those competing claims have deepened doubts over whether diplomacy can still halt the fighting.

Oil prices have risen sharply on fears the weeks-long war could reignite, particularly after Iran once again shut the Strait of Hormuz following a brief reopening at the weekend.

That sense of foreboding was echoed in Tehran, even after the capital reopened its main airports on Monday.

“Let’s see what happens by Tuesday. The only thing that the 50 days of war has shown is that no one cares about the Iranian people,” said one 30-year-old doctor on condition of anonymity.

Saghar, 39, said hope was in short supply for Iranians caught between state pressure and the damage wrought by war.”The economy is horrible. They detain people for nothing,” she said, declining to give her family name.

Security tight

Despite the uncertainty hanging over the Pakistan talks, security was visibly tightened in Islamabad.

Officials announced road closures and traffic curbs across the city and in neighbouring Rawalpindi.

The US president said his negotiators, whose names he did not disclose, would arrive in Islamabad on Monday, but by local evening there had still been no formal announcement that they had departed.

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A White House official said Vice President JD Vance would head the delegation after Mr Trump said he would not attend himself because of security concerns.

He is also expected to be joined by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the official said.

Mr Trump has faced mounting pressure to find an exit from the crisis since Tehran moved to squeeze traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet the naval blockade intended to choke off Iran’s oil revenues, along with the seizure of a cargo ship accused of trying to evade it, has prompted fresh threats from Tehran rather than pushing it back toward the negotiating table.

The ISNA news agency quoted a spokesperson for Iran’s central command centre as saying the military “will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy”, while Tasnim reported that Tehran had sent drones toward US military ships.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, warned that any attempt to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without permission “will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted”.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call that “normal traffic” through the crucial route for oil and gas shipments “should be maintained”, state media reported.

Commuters pass a billboard showing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran today

Sticking points

Iran’s foreign ministry said delays in enforcing a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel has been battling the militant group Hezbollah, also amounted to a breach of the wider Middle East truce.

A separate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon came into effect on Friday and covered Hezbollah, whose rocket fire in support of Iran pulled Lebanon into the war.

Israel’s military warned Lebanese civilians not to return to dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, saying Hezbollah activity was violating the agreement.

Even so, thousands of displaced residents have started returning to southern Lebanon since the truce took hold.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that the military would act with “full force” against any threats in Lebanon, even while the ceasefire remained in place.

So far, there has been only a single 21-hour negotiating session in Islamabad

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told AFP that his group would seek to break the “Yellow Line” Israel has imposed in southern Lebanon, while also saying it wanted “the ceasefire to continue”.

Another central sticking point in the US-Iran talks has been Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, which Mr Trump said on Friday Iran had agreed to surrender.

But Iran’s foreign ministry has said the stockpile, believed to have been buried by US bombing during last June’s 12-day war, was “not going to be transferred anywhere”.

Baqaei said the matter had not come up with US negotiators.

“It was never raised as an option for us,” he said.