Diplomats worked through backchannels Tuesday to arrange a new round of talks between the US and Iran after Washington enacted its blockade of Iranian ports, while Tehran threatened to retaliate by striking targets across the war-weary region.
US President Donald Trump said a second round of talks could happen “over the next two days”, telling the New York Post the negotiations could be held again in Islamabad.
UN secretary-general António Guterres concurred, saying it’s “highly probable” that talks will restart. He cited a meeting he had with Pakistan’s deputy prime minister, Ishaq Dar.
Meanwhile in Washington, the first direct talks in decades between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the US concluded on a productive note, according to the US state department.
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said the two countries are “on the same side of the equation” in “liberating Lebanon” from the militant Hezbollah group. Lebanese ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad called the meeting “constructive” but urged an end to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Since March, that war has displaced more than 1-million people in Lebanon.
Israel and Lebanon have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948, and Lebanon remains deeply divided over diplomatic engagement with Israel.
First round of talks failed to end conflict
Last weekend in Pakistan, an initial round of talks aimed at permanently ending the US-Iran conflict failed to produce an agreement. The White House said Iran’s nuclear ambitions were a central sticking point.
“I think they want to make a deal very badly,” Trump said in an excerpt from an interview with Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria scheduled to air Wednesday morning. He added: “I view it as very close to over.”
A US official said Tuesday that fresh talks with Iran were still under discussion and that nothing has been scheduled. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss sensitive negotiations.
Muhammad Aurangzeb, Pakistan’s finance minister, told The Associated Press that “our leadership is not giving up” on efforts to help the US and Iran end the conflict.
Though the ceasefire appeared to hold, the showdown over the strategic Strait of Hormuz risked reigniting hostilities and deepening the regional war’s economic fallout.
The war, now in its seventh week, has jolted markets and rattled the global economy as shipping has been cut off and airstrikes have torn through military and civilian infrastructure across the region.
The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,100 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen US service members have also been killed.
Tankers turned around after blockade took effect
The blockade is intended to pressure Iran, which has exported millions of barrels of oil, mostly to Asia, since the war began February 28. Much of it has likely been carried by so-called dark transits that evade sanctions and oversight, providing cash that’s been vital to keeping Iran running.
US forces enforcing the blockade will operate in the Gulf of Oman, a US official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations. Ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz must cross the Gulf of Oman to reach the open sea.
The official said the move will allow the US military to observe vessels subject to the blockade leaving Iranian facilities and clearing the strait before they are intercepted and forced to turn around.
US Central Command said Tuesday no ships made it past the blockade in the first 24 hours, while six merchant vessels complied with direction from US forces to turn around and re-enter Iranian waters.
Tankers approaching the strait Monday turned around shortly after the blockade took effect, though one reversed course again and transited the waterway.
The tanker Rich Starry had been waiting off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to shipping data firm Lloyd’s List, which cited data from the energy cargo-tracking firm Vortexa. It was not immediately clear whether the tanker had earlier docked in Iran. Yet it was listed by the US treasury’s office of foreign assets control as linked to Iranian shipping.
Lloyd’s List, citing ship registry and tracking data, reported that the vessel is owned by a Chinese shipping company and was ultimately bound for China with a stopover in an Omani port, south of the strait. The vessel updated its broadcast signal on Tuesday evening to no longer show it was headed for Sohar, Oman, according to tracking data reported by maritime analytics firm MarineTraffic.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said Chinese tankers will not be allowed passage through the strait. “So they’re not going to be able to get their oil,” he told reporters Tuesday.
In a comment seemingly directed at Trump without naming him, Chinese President Xi Jinping said nations should “oppose the world’s retrogression to the law of the jungle”.
Since the war began, Iran has curtailed maritime traffic, with most commercial vessels avoiding the waterway. Tehran’s effective closure of the strait, through which a fifth of global oil transits in peacetime, has sent oil prices skyrocketing, pushing up the cost of gasoline, food and other basic goods far beyond the Middle East.
Israel and Lebanon conclude talks
The Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington were “productive,” the US state department said in a statement, adding that “all sides agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed time and venue”.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who facilitated the talks, had downplayed expectations for any immediate agreement.
Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the US, said after the talks that both countries saw eye-to-eye in several areas.
“The Lebanese government made it very clear that they will no longer be occupied by Hezbollah,” he said.
Moawad, Lebanon’s top US envoy, said in a brief statement that she had called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and the return home of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.
After the ceasefire in Iran, Israel pressed ahead with its air and ground campaign in Lebanon. It has, however, halted strikes in Beirut, the country’s capital, since April 8, after a deadly bombardment that hit several crowded commercial and residential areas in central Beirut and killed more than 350 people in one day.
The deaths sparked an international outcry and threats by Iran that it would end the ceasefire.
Lebanese officials have pushed for a ceasefire. Israel has framed the negotiations around Hezbollah’s disarmament and a potential peace deal, without publicly committing to halting hostilities or withdrawing its forces.
Israel wants Lebanon’s government to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, much as was envisaged in a November 2024 ceasefire. But the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for decades and said on Monday that it will not abide by any agreements that may result from the talks.
Reporting by Munir Ahmed and Sam Metz, with Aamer Madhani, Matthew Lee, Fatima Hussein, Collin Binkley, Chris Rugaber, Will Weissert, Konstantin Toporin, Sylvie Corbet, Toqa Ezzidin, Natalie Melzer, Edith Lederer, Farnoush Amiri and Russ Bynum.
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- Iran: The strategic winners and losers, so far
Top image: A man sits next to charred cars and wreckage where a building was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike the previous Wednesday, in central Beirut, Lebanon, on April 14. Picture: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar.
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