By Saad Sayeed, Ariba Shahid and Steve Holland<\/p>\n
ISLAMABAD\/WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – Hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran receded as a new week began, with talks \u200caimed at ending the two-month conflict at a standstill and both Tehran and Washington showing \u200clittle willingness to soften their terms.<\/p>\n
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi left mediator Pakistan empty-handed at the weekend, and U.S. President Donald \u200bTrump canceled a planned visit to Islamabad by his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, dealing back-to-back blows to peace prospects.<\/p>\n
The deadlock leaves the world’s biggest economy and a major oil power locked in a confrontation that has already pushed energy prices to multi-year highs, stoked inflation and darkened global growth prospects.<\/p>\n
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian \u200ctold Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif by \u2060phone that Tehran would not enter “imposed negotiations” under threats or blockade, according to a statement from the Iranian government.<\/p>\n
Pezeshkian said the United States should first remove “operational obstacles,” \u2060including its blockade on Iranian ports, before negotiators can lay any groundwork to resolve the conflict.<\/p>\n
Araqchi described his visit to Pakistan as “very fruitful.” An Iranian diplomatic source in Islamabad said Tehran would not accept “maximalist demands” from the United \u200bStates.<\/p>\n
Trump \u200btold reporters in Florida that he scrapped the envoys’ \u200bvisit because the talks involved too much travel \u200cand expense to consider an inadequate offer from the Iranians. After the diplomatic trip was called off, Iran “offered a lot, but not enough,” Trump said.<\/p>\n
On Truth Social, he wrote that there was “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership.<\/p>\n
“Nobody knows who is in charge, including them,” he posted. “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 strains, \u200cIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops to attack \u200bHezbollah targets in Lebanon, his office said, further testing a \u200bthree-week ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Tehran has largely closed the Strait of \u200bHormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, \u200cwhile Washington blocks Iran’s oil exports.<\/p>\n
White House press \u200bsecretary Karoline Leavitt earlier said \u200bthe U.S. had seen some progress from the Iranian side and that Vice President JD Vance was ready to travel to Pakistan. Vance led an unsuccessful first round of talks in Islamabad \u200bthis month.<\/p>\n
The U.S.-Iran conflict, in \u200cwhich a ceasefire is in force, began with U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28. \u200bIran has since struck Israel, U.S. bases and Gulf states.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by \u200bLisa Shumaker; Editing by Sergio Non and Deepa Babington)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Saad Sayeed, Ariba Shahid and Steve Holland ISLAMABAD\/WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) – Hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10389,25826,34,15018,2018,650,15388,2017,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-83692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-abbas-araqchi","9":"tag-diplomatic-breakthrough","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-islamabad","12":"tag-jared-kushner","13":"tag-pakistan","14":"tag-prime-minister-shehbaz-sharif","15":"tag-steve-witkoff","16":"tag-tehran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116468259430143936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}