US President Donald Trump has canceled a planned trip to Pakistan for envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who were set to engage in peace talks with Iran. Trump announced on Truth Social that the US holds “all the cards” and that if Iran desires dialogue, “all they have to do is call.” He also stated that the trip would be “too much time wasted” on travel.<\/p>\n
According to Pakistani officials, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi departed Islamabad without meeting US envoys. Araghchi described his visit to Pakistan as “very fruitful,” sharing on social media that he had “shared Iran’s position concerning [a] workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the state of the US president’s mind is reportedly becoming a subject of serious discussion, moving beyond mere late-night talk show jokes. Iranian media indicated that Araghchi had subsequently flown to Muscat, Oman’s capital, where he was expected to meet senior officials to “discuss and exchange views on bilateral relations and regional developments.”<\/p>\n
Tehran has rejected a new round of direct talks with the US, with an Iranian diplomatic source asserting that Tehran would not accept Washington’s “maximalist demands.” This stalemate has left the world’s largest economy and a major oil power in a confrontation that has already driven energy prices to multi-year highs, fueled inflation, and dimmed global growth prospects.<\/p>\n
Trump further posted on Truth Social about “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership, adding, “Nobody knows who is in charge, including them… Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”<\/p>\n
Adding to regional tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops to attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, as confirmed by his office, further testing a three-week ceasefire. Tehran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, while Washington continues to block Iran’s oil exports.<\/p>\n
Earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned that the US had observed some progress from the Iranian side and that Vice-President JD Vance was prepared to travel to Pakistan. Vance had previously led an unsuccessful first round of talks in Islamabad this month. The US-Iran conflict, currently under a ceasefire, began on February 28 with US-Israeli air strikes on Iran. Since then, Iran has retaliated with strikes on Israel, US bases, and Gulf states.<\/p>\n
#DonaldTrump #USIranRelations #MiddleEastPeace #PakistanDiplomacy #JaredKushner #SteveWitkoff #AbbasAraghchi #StraitOfHormuz #Geopolitics #EnergyPrices<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump has canceled a planned trip to Pakistan for envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who were set to engage in peace talks with Iran. Trump announced on Truth Social that the US holds “all the cards” and that if Iran desires dialogue, “all they have to do is call.” He also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fajr.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}