Islamabad, Apr 12: President Donald Trump on Sunday said the US Navy would “immediately” begin a blockade to stop ships from entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz, after US-Iran peace talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement.
Trump sought to exert strategic control over the waterway responsible for the transportation of 20 per cent of global oil supplies before the war, hoping to take away Iran’s key source of economic leverage in the fighting.
The president added that he has “instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.”
Trump also said the U.S. was ready to “finish up” Iran at the “appropriate moment,” stressing that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions were at the core of the failure to end the war.
Face-to-face talks ended earlier Sunday after 21 hours, leaving a fragile two-week ceasefire in doubt.
US officials said the negotiations collapsed over what they described as Iran’s refusal to commit to abandoning a path to a nuclear weapon, while Iranian officials blamed the US for the breakdown of the talks without specifying the sticking points.
Neither side indicated what will happen after the 14-day ceasefire expires on April 22. Pakistani mediators urged all parties to maintain it. Both said their positions were clear and put the onus on the other side, underscoring how little the gap had narrowed throughout the talks.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vice President JD Vance said after the talks.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led Iran in the negotiations, said it was time for the United States “to decide whether it can gain our trust or not.”
He did not mention the core disputes in a series of social media posts, though Iranian officials earlier said the talks fell apart over two or three key issues, blaming what they called US overreach.
Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons but has insisted on its right to a civilian nuclear program. It has offered “affirmative commitments” in the past in writing, including in the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. Experts say its stockpile of enriched uranium, though not weapons-grade, is only a short technical step away.
Since the US and Israel launched the war on Feb 28, it has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, 2,020 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states, and caused lasting damage to infrastructure in half a dozen Middle Eastern countries. Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz has largely cut off the Persian Gulf and its oil and gas exports from the global economy, sending energy prices soaring.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his country will try to facilitate a new dialogue between Iran and the US in the coming days.
“It is imperative that the parties continue to uphold their commitment to cease fire,” Dar said.
The deadlock — and Vance’s take-it-or-leave-it proposal that Iran end its nuclear program — mirrored February’s nuclear talks in Switzerland. Though Trump has said the subsequent war was meant to compel Iran’s leaders to abandon nuclear ambitions, each side’s positions appeared unchanged in negotiations following six weeks of fighting.
An Iranian diplomatic official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the closed-door talks, denied that negotiations had failed over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Iran is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, but it has the right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” they said, reiterating Iran’s longstanding negotiating position.
There was no word on whether they would resume, though Iran said it was open to continuing the dialogue, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.
“We have never sought war. But if they try to win what they failed to win on the battlefield through talks, that’s absolutely unacceptable,” 60-year-old Mohammad Bagher Karami said in downtown Tehran.
US moves to shift status quo in Strait of Hormuz
The United States and Iran entered talks with sharply different proposals and contrasting assumptions about their leverage to end the war. Before negotiations began, the ceasefire was already threatened by deep disagreements and Israel’s continued attacks against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran’s 10-point proposal ahead of the talks called for a guaranteed end to the war and sought control over the Strait of Hormuz. It included ending fighting against Iran’s “regional allies,” explicitly calling for a halt to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.
Pakistani officials told The Associated Press in March that the US 15-point proposal included monitoring mechanisms and a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program. Speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to discuss details, they said it also covered reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Indeed, Iran’s closure of the strait has proved its biggest strategic advantage in the war.
During the talks, the US military said two destroyers transited the critical waterway ahead of mine-clearing work, a first since the war began. Iran’s state media, however, reported the country’s joint military command denied that.
“We’re sweeping the strait. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me,” Trump said as talks extended into early Sunday morning.
Israel presses ahead in Lebanon
The impasse raises new questions about fighting in Lebanon. Israel has pressed ahead with strikes since the ceasefire was announced, saying the agreement did not apply there. Iran and Pakistan claimed otherwise.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported six people were killed Sunday morning in an Israeli strike in Maaroub, a village near the southern coastal city of Tyre. Though Israel’s strikes over Beirut have calmed in recent days, its attacks on southern Lebanon have intensified alongside a ground invasion it renewed after Hezbollah launched rockets toward Israel in the opening days of the Iran war.
Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected to begin Tuesday in Washington, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s office has said, after Israel’s surprise announcement authorizing talks despite the lack of official relations between the countries. Protests erupted in Beirut on Saturday over the planned negotiations.
Israel wants Lebanon’s government to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, much like was envisaged in a November 2024 ceasefire. But the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for decades.
The day the Iran ceasefire deal was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people in the deadliest day in Lebanon since the war began, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
