Key events
Here are some of the images coming in from around the Middle East in the ninth week of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
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The Iranian side had sought to portray the talks as simply a first step. However, actions taken by Trump in the aftermath – including a US naval blockade on the strait of Hormuz and inflammatory claims made in social media posts – had led the Iranians to push back from suggestions of further negotiations under the threat of “force”.
Last week, Pakistan’s army chief spent three days in Tehran, in an attempt to salvage the negotiations and get a second round of Islamabad talks back on track.
While both sides initially agreed to returning to negotiations this week, the Iranians then reversed their decision over the weekend after the US navy seized an Iranian ship, an act they called “piracy” that would have “grave consequences”. By Wednesday morning, it was still unclear if Iran would be sending their team back to Islamabad as hoped.
Speaking on Tuesday night, Trump said Iran would have to negotiate or “face problems like they’ve never seen”.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
For Pakistan, much is riding on the success of this second round of talks.
Pakistan’s government and military have been intricately involved and invested in bringing about a ceasefire between the US and Iran for weeks, and have been credited with pushing both sides to the table.
It was efforts led by Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, that helped finalise a temporary ceasefire on 8 April, bringing US president Donald Trump back from the brink after his threat to annihilate Iran’s entire civilisation.
It was seen as a diplomatic triumph for Pakistan when both sides turned up for the first round of talks in Islamabad on 11 April, even as mistrust ran high between their negotiating teams. Iran sent two planeloads of senior officials to attend, which was seen as a sign of their seriousness to bring about a permanent end to the war.
The talks started indirectly through Pakistani mediators, and then moved to face-to-face talks, led by US vice-president JD Vance on the US side and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on the Iranian side.
The negotiations took place over 21 hours, during which time Vance was said to have phoned president Donald Trump more than a dozen times.
But as Vance boarded a flight back to Washington on 12 April, it was empty handed, having claimed the Iranians would not reach a deal on their nuclear programme.
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Iran denounces US seizure of Iranian ship
Iran has condemned what it labelled the “maritime piracy” of the US seizing an Iranian-flagged container ship and says it is a “further complication” of the Middle East situation.
Iran’s foreign affairs ministry called for the immediate release of the vessel and its sailors, crew and their families, saying the seizure not only violated international law but was another “clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement with the US.
The statement – which Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency posted on X – said Iran had drawn the UN’s attention to the incident and called for a “serious condemnation and response from international institutions and responsible governments”.
US Central Command said US marines departed the USS Tripoli assault ship by helicopter and rappelled on to the Touska on Sunday.
The news threw into question Donald Trump’s earlier announcement that US negotiators would head to Pakistan for another round of talks amid the expiry of the US-Iran ceasefire on Wednesday.
Trump says recovering Iran’s uranium will be ‘long and difficult’
Donald Trump has said retrieving uranium from Iran will be a “long and difficult” process in the wake of the US bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities last year.
“Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran,” the president posted on his Truth Social platform overnight to Tuesday.
Therefore, digging it out will be a long and difficult process.”
Trump has used nuclear dust to refer to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium but also to nuclear materials left from the June strikes.
The US president claimed after the bombardment that it had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, but as Peter Beaumont reported, it soon became apparent this was not true. The bombs had wreaked extensive damage but deep underground sites – burrowed beneath mountains in two sites in particular, Isfahan and Natanz – could not be destroyed.
In Trump’s latest post he also hit out at news outlets, saying:
Fake News CNN, and other corrupt Media Networks and Platforms, fail to give our great aviators the credit they deserve – Always trying to demean and belittle – LOSERS!!!”
The future of Iran’s nuclear material has become a key sticking point between the US and Iran in their ongoing standoff. Trump last week claimed Iran had agreed to hand over its enriched uranium to the US, prompting Iran to say it hadn’t.
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
On Tuesday morning, Islamabad sat poised and ready to host a second round of talks – even as uncertainty reigned over whether both sides would even turn up.
Pakistani officials remained optimistic that the second round of negotiations would happen, even as Iranian ministers said they would refuse to come to the table under the threat of “force” and it remained unclear exactly when US vice-president JD Vance planned to depart Washington for Islamabad.
Roads were shut down around Islamabad’s five-star Serena hotel, where the first round of negotiations took place over a tense 21 hours, but failed to strike any deal.
Over the past few days, Islamabad and other major cities have been grappling with blackouts lasting more than seven hours, as the country faces a grave energy shortage due to the ongoing blockade of the strait of Hormuz – bringing home the economic gravity of these talks for south Asian countries.
Neighbouring Bangladesh warned this week that its mobile network would soon face a shutdown as they were running out of fuel to run the power stations.
Islamabad’s electricity board released a statement on Monday night making assurances there would be enough electricity to ensure that US and Iranian negotiators were not plunged into darkness for the duration of their meeting.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of events in the Middle East.
Iran is considering attending peace talks with the US in Pakistan, a senior Iranian official said on Monday, after moves by Islamabad to end a US blockade of Iran’s ports – a key obstacle to Tehran rejoining peace efforts as the end of a two-week ceasefire nears.
But the official also stressed to the Reuters news agency that no decision had been made, while Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said “continued violations of the ceasefire” by the US were a major obstacle to continuing the diplomatic process.
On Monday night, Iranian chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused Donald Trump on social media of increasing pressure on Tehran through the blockade and ceasefire violations, saying Iran rejected negotiating under threat and warning that “we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield”.
The two-week ceasefire – set to expire on Wednesday – had appeared to be in jeopardy after the US said it seized an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday that tried to run its blockade and Tehran vowed to retaliate.
In other developments:
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Trump said a deal with Iran would happen “relatively quickly”. He also said on Truth Social the US would not lift its blockade until Iran had agreed to a deal and that he believed the nuclear deal the US was negotiating with Tehran would be better than a 2015 international agreement to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.
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US vice-president JD Vance remained in the US on Monday, a source told Reuters, denying reports he was already on his way to Pakistan, in comments adding to the uncertainty over a second round of talks. In Islamabad, however, preparations for the talks appeared to be going ahead.
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Oil prices fell on Tuesday while most stocks rose on lingering hopes for a deal to end the US-Iran war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, despite Tehran not saying if it would attend.
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Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the conflict by phone. Lavrov reportedly reiterated the need to uphold the ceasefire and continue diplomatic efforts, while Araghchi said Tehran would to try to ensure the uninterrupted passage of Russian ships and cargo through the Hormuz strait.
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The toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza on Monday has risen to at least five, according to Palestinian health officials, while witnesses said Hamas fighters clashed with gunmen from an Israeli-backed militia.
