United States (US) President Donald Trump accused Iran on Sunday of a “total violation” of the two countries’ ceasefire for firing on ships near the Strait of Hormuz, and renewed a threat to \u200bwipe out Iran’s bridges and power plants unless it accepted his terms.<\/p>\n
Trump said his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening, prepared to hold more talks.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re offering a very \u200cfair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don\u2019t, the US is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he posted on social media. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”<\/p>\n
Iran, which has blocked off the strait to ships apart from its own since the US and Israel attacked on February 28, announced on Friday it would reopen the strait.<\/p>\n
But it reversed that decision a day later after Trump refused to halt a US \u200bblockade of Iranian shipping. At least two ships reported they had been fired upon while approaching the strait on Saturday, and since then shipping data has shown no movement through the waterway.<\/p>\n
“Iran decided \u200bto fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz, A Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement!” Trump wrote in Sunday morning’s post. “That wasn\u2019t nice, was it?”<\/p>\n
Still, despite \u2060Trump’s new threats to renew bombing, his announcement that US officials were returning to Pakistan was the first official confirmation that talks would resume. A first round of talks held a week ago had ended with no \u200bbreakthrough.<\/p>\n
Iran’s Chief Negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said the two sides remained far apart on nuclear issues and the strait, the two main sticking points.<\/p>\n
Two liquefied petroleum gas tankers were seen on ship tracking sites \u200bmoving eastbound towards the Strait early on Sunday morning but the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Iran’s armed forces turned them back. Marine traffic data showed no other movements after midnight.<\/p>\n
Now in its eighth week, the war has created the most severe shock to global energy supplies in history, sending oil prices surging because of the de facto closure of the strait, which before the war carried one-fifth of the world’s oil shipments.<\/p>\n
Friday’s announcement that the strait would reopen caused one of the sharpest \u200bone-day drops in oil prices in history, and stock markets hit fresh all-time highs on the expectation that the disruption would soon end. That the reopening has yet to take place as anticipated could bring new volatility \u200bwhen markets reopen on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people have been killed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran and in an Israeli invasion of Lebanon conducted in parallel. Iran responded to attacks with missiles and drones against its Arab neighbours that host \u200cUS bases.
\nTalks in \u2060Islamabad ended with no agreement last week but security measures were being taken in the Pakistani capital in preparation for potential further meetings.<\/p>\n
City authorities halted public transport and heavy goods traffic through the city and rolls of barbed wire were rolled out near the Serena Hotel where last week’s talks were held. The hotel told guests on Sunday to leave.<\/p>\n
In central Islamabad, there was a heavy police and army presence but the security protocols did not appear to be at the same level as they were before the first round, when Vice President JD Vance led the U.S. delegation.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said a framework of understanding would have to \u200bbe agreed for further talks.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13879,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-32433","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Trump said his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening, prepared to hold more talks.","published_date":"","news_description":"Trump said his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening, prepared to hold more talks.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32434,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32433\/revisions\/32434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}