ISLAMABAD — A US negotiating team is headed to Pakistan on Monday even after Tehran signaled that it would not send negotiators to Islamabad, threatening plans for new round of peace talks between the warring nations less than 48 hours before a fragile ceasefire is set to expire.
Tehran’s reticence comes after the US on Sunday fired on and seized one of its cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz as part of Washington’s blockade on Iranian vessels in the vital waterway.
A video released by US Central Command shows the operation, with Marines descending from a helicopter by rope to board the vessel, the Touska, after “guided-missile destroyer USS Spruance…disabled Touska’s propulsion.”
President Trump said Sunday the US military had “stopped them right in their tracks by blowing a hole in the engine room” after the ship failed to heed repeated warnings.
Trump said Marines then took control of the vessel and moved to investigate its cargo. He said the Iranian flagged ship was under the existing US Treasury Department sanctions.
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday Washington had “violated the ceasefire from the beginning of its implementation”, citing the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz since April 13, and the overnight capture of an Iranian container ship by the US military as breaches of the truce as well as international law.
He warned that if the US and Israel launched aggression again, Iranian forces “will respond accordingly”, while reaffirming that Tehran’s 10-point proposal, submitted before the first round of Islamabad talks, remained its basis for any negotiation.
“The US is not learning its lessons from experience,” Baghaei said, “and this will never lead to good results.”
Iran’s joint military command vowed to respond, and its Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi told his Pakistani counterpart that American threats to Iranian ships and ports were “clear signs” of Washington’s disingenuousness ahead of the planned talks, Iran state media reported.
US President Donald Trump told Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir that he would consider Munir’s advice on the Strait of Hormuz blockade being a hurdle to peace talks with Iran when the two spoke by phone, a Pakistani security source said on Monday.
Trump said American negotiators would head to the Pakistani capital on Monday, but it was not immediately clear whether those plans would now change.
“My Representatives are going to Islamabad, Pakistan. They will be there tomorrow evening, for Negotiations,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He accused Iran of a “Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement” after Iranian gunboats fired on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, including a French vessel and a British freighter.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” Trump wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
With tensions flaring and the ceasefire due to expire midweek, Pakistan has intensified diplomatic contacts with both Washington and Tehran over the past 24 hours with the goal of resuming the talks on Tuesday as planned, according to two Pakistani officials involved in the preparations.
Baghaei told reporters in Tehran on Monday that there were no plans yet to attend the talks with the US, but he did not rule it out.
“We have no plans for the next round of negotiations and no decision has been made in this regard,” Baghaei said.
Pakistani officials said they remain cautiously hopeful that they can bring the two sides back to the negotiating table.
Iran on Saturday said it had received new proposals from the United States but suggested a wide gap remained between the sides. It was unclear whether either side had shifted stances on issues that derailed the last round of negotiations, including Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, its regional proxies and the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz has also sent oil prices skyrocketing and given rise to one of the worst global energy crises in decades.
Oil prices recovered slightly following Iran’s announcement that the strait was being reopened a 10-day truce between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon took hold on Friday.
Oil prices were up again in early trading on Monday, with Brent crude, the international standard, at about $95 a barrel — up more than 30 percent from the day the war started.
Iran early Monday warned it could keep up the global economic pain as ships remained unable to transit the strait, with hundreds of vessels waiting at each end for clearance.
Security of the strait is not free and “the choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” Mohammad Reza Aref, first vice president of Iran, said in a social media post calling for a lasting end to military and economic pressure on Tehran.
Source: Saudi Gazette