Push to bring US and Iran together for peace talks as ceasefire deadline looms

The US last week imposed a blockade of Iranian ports to pressure Tehran into reopening the strait and on Sunday seized an Iranian cargo vessel.

US forces then escalated the campaign on Tuesday, boarding an oil tanker previously sanctioned for smuggling Iranian crude oil in Asia. Ship-tracking data showed the vessel in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia around the time when it was intercepted.

Preparations in Islamabad for an expected second round of US-Iran talks. Photograph: Sohail Shahzad/EPA

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Iranian state TV that US moves against two Iranian vessels amounted to “piracy at sea and state terrorism” and questioned Washington’s seriousness in negotiating.

The closure of the strait by Iran threatens global recession and has given Tehran a powerful strategic weapon to counter the overwhelming conventional military superiority of its enemies. The war began in February with a first wave of bombing by the US and Israel, which killed Iran’s then supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Yvette Cooper, the UK’s foreign secretary, who has been holding discussions with counterparts aimed at safeguarding the strait, has described it as “a critical diplomatic moment” in the crisis.

Hopes that negotiations were to take place rose early on Monday after Trump told the New York Post that JD Vance, the US vice-president, was on his way to Pakistan, a statement later corrected by officials.

Vance, who led the US delegation in talks earlier this month, has not yet departed Washington and had meetings scheduled for Wednesday morning, a White House official said on Tuesday at about 5pm GMT.

In Islamabad, Pakistani officials have expressed confidence that Iran will resume talks – the highest-level negotiations between the US and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A spokesperson said foreign minister Ishaq Dar met on Tuesday with the acting US ambassador in Islamabad to urge a ceasefire extension. Dar also met the ambassador from China, a key trading partner with Iran.

“Pakistan has made sincere efforts to convince the Iranian leadership to participate in the second round of talks and these efforts continue,” Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar said on X.

Security has been tightened across Pakistan’s capital, where authorities have deployed thousands of personnel and increased patrols along routes leading to the airport. Government offices, schools and colleges in the city have been shut down and much of the centre barred to civilians.

“If they don’t come to Islamabad, or the second round does not take place, it will be an embarrassing situation for Pakistan as well,” Nusrat Javed, a political analyst and columnist, said.

Over the weekend, Iran said that it had received new proposals from Washington, but also suggested that a wide gap remains between the sides. Issues that derailed the last round of negotiations included Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, its support for a series of militant movements that act as regional proxies and the strait of Hormuz.

Trump said that Iran had no choice and would take part in talks. “We’ve taken out their navy, we’ve taken out their air force, we’ve taken out their leaders.”

The US president again claimed “regime change” and said those now in charge were “much more rational”.

Many experts say that the conflict has led to a radicalisation of Iran’s regime with more pragmatic figures either killed or sidelined, allowing senior officials in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to increase their hold on power.

Iranian Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, right, shaking hands with Pakistan’s Army chief Asim Munir before a meeting in Tehran. Photograph: Office of Iranian Parliament Speaker/AFP/Getty Images

In a social media post, Trump called on Iran’s leaders on Tuesday to free eight women he said face execution.

“I would greatly appreciate the release of these women,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Would be a great start to our negotiations!”

Trump’s statement accompanied a reposting of a claim on X by a pro-Israel youth activist in the US that eight women faced death by hanging. That claim, which did not give names but posted photographs of eight women, could not be immediately verified.

The Iranian judiciary’s official Mizan Online website claimed Trump had been “misled once again by fake news” and some of the women had been released while others faced charges that would lead to imprisonment.

According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norway-based NGO, Iranian authorities have arrested more than 3,600 people on charges related to the ongoing war, ranging from sharing videos with media outlets based overseas to possessing Starlink internet terminals.

IHR said the figure, based on state media reports and its own research, represented a minimum given the current internet restrictions in Iran, and that the actual number of arrests was “likely much higher”.

At least 767 of the cases were reported after the start of the current ceasefire on 8 April.

Since the war started, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, according to authorities. Additionally, 23 people have died in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 US service members throughout the region have been killed.

In Lebanon, authorities on Tuesday raised the toll from six weeks of war between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,454 dead. A fragile 10-day ceasefire began on Friday in Lebanon, allowing rescuers to recover and identify bodies in previously inaccessible areas targeted by the Israeli offensive.

The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors met last week for the first direct diplomatic talks in decades.