US and Iran Signal New Ceasefire Talks as Truce Nears End
Islamabad. The United States and Iran have signaled they will hold a new round of ceasefire talks in Pakistan, two regional officials said Tuesday, as leaders on both sides warned they were prepared for more fighting if a fragile two-week truce expires without a deal.
Neither the US nor Iran has publicly confirmed the timing of the talks in Islamabad, with Iranian state television denying any official was already in Pakistan’s capital.
Pakistan-led mediators received confirmation that the top negotiators, US Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, will arrive in Islamabad early Wednesday to lead their teams in the talks, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
A ceasefire that began April 8 was set to expire Wednesday.
Both sides remain dug in rhetorically. US President Donald Trump has warned that “lots of bombs” will “start going off” if there’s no agreement before the ceasefire deadline, and Iran’s chief negotiator said that Tehran has “new cards on the battlefield” that haven't yet been revealed.
The ceasefire seemed likely to be extended if talks resume. White House officials have said that Vance would lead the American delegation, but Iran hasn't said who it might send. Iranian state television on Tuesday broadcast a message saying that “no delegation from Iran has visited Islamabad … so far.”
Iranian state TV long has been controlled by hard-liners within Iran’s theocracy. The on-screen alert likely reflects the ongoing internal debate within Iran’s theocracy as it weighs how to respond to the US Navy’s seizure of an Iranian container ship over the weekend.
On Tuesday, the US said its forces boarded an oil tanker previously sanctioned for smuggling Iranian crude oil in Asia. The Pentagon said in a social media post that US forces boarded the M/T Tifani “without incident.”
The US military did not say where the vessel had been boarded, though ship-tracking data showed the Tifani is in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia on Tuesday.
The statement added that “international waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.”
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