President Trump called off a trip by two of his top negotiators to Islamabad, Pakistan, on Saturday, just before they were set to leave for talks about a potential deal to end the war in Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve told my people a little while ago, they were getting ready to leave, and I said, \u2018Nope, you\u2019re not making an 18-hour flight to go there. We have all the cards,\u2019\u201d Mr. Trump said in a statement. \u201cThey can call us anytime they want, but you\u2019re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, returned to Islamabad, after having left it on Saturday, according to Iranian state media.<\/p>\n
But the cancellation of the Americans\u2019 trip is the latest sign that Iran and the United States are far from reaching a deal to end the war. Many sticking points remain, including the fate of Iran\u2019s highly enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which both sides are attempting to blockade<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iran has publicly rejected peace talks during the U.S. naval blockade of its ports, which is aimed at crushing the Iranian economy and pressuring Tehran to make a deal. <\/p>\n What\u2019s the latest? <\/p>\n Mr. Araghchi said on Saturday that he had shared with Pakistani officials Iran\u2019s position on a \u201cworkable framework to permanently end the war on Iran.\u201d He did not give details of the latest proposal.<\/p>\n But the talks hit a snag shortly after Mr. Araghchi wrapped up Saturday\u2019s round of meetings and left for Oman for a day. Mr. Trump abruptly announced that some of his top aides<\/a> \u2014 including Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump\u2019s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president\u2019s son-in-law \u2014 would not travel to Pakistan for a new round of discussions.<\/p>\n Officials in Pakistan have been mediating between the United States and Iran to try to end more than a month of war in the Middle East. <\/p>\n The decision to call off the U.S. trip to Islamabad was the second setback for Pakistan\u2019s mediation efforts in less than a week. Mr. Vance was also expected to travel to Islamabad earlier this week before canceling at the last minute.<\/p>\n Mr. Araghchi returned to Pakistan on Sunday ahead of a planned trip to Russia, according to Iranian state media.<\/p>\n Tensions have remained high in and around the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial conduit for Persian Gulf crude oil and natural gas. Both Iran and the United States have continued to seize<\/a> vessels they said<\/a> have violated their restrictions on shipping in the waterway.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s nuclear program<\/p>\n Some of the core sticking points between the United States and Iran are the scope of Iran\u2019s uranium enrichment program and the fate of its stockpile of enriched uranium. Iran insists it has a \u201cright\u201d to enrich nuclear fuel under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. <\/p>\n Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that he will not allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. But he is also confronting the complicated legacy of his decision, eight years ago, to cancel what he has called \u201ca horrible, one-sided deal\u201d to curtail Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n That Obama-era agreement \u2014 formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A. \u2014 suffered from flaws and omissions. It would have expired after 15 years, leaving Iran free after 2030 to make as much nuclear fuel as it wanted. But once Mr. Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, the Iranians went on an enrichment spree much sooner, leaving them closer to a bomb than ever before.<\/p>\n Much recent attention has focused on Iran\u2019s half-ton of uranium that has been enriched to a level close to what is typically used in atom bombs. The majority of it is thought to be buried in a tunnel complex that Mr. Trump bombed last June. But those 970 pounds of potential bomb fuel represent only a small fraction of the problem.<\/p>\n Today, international inspectors say, Iran has a total of 11 tons of uranium, at various enrichment levels. With further purification, that is enough to build up to 100 nuclear weapons \u2014 more than the estimated size of Israel\u2019s arsenal.<\/p>\n Virtually all of that cache accumulated in the years after Mr. Trump abandoned the Obama-era deal.<\/p>\n What is \u2018nuclear dust\u2019?<\/p>\n In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has been talking about a substance he says is key to ending the United States\u2019 war against Iran: \u201cnuclear dust.\u201d<\/p>\n In the president\u2019s telling, Iran\u2019s nuclear program was so badly damaged by U.S. bombs last year that all that remains under the rubble is a sort of powdery aftermath.<\/p>\n The phrase \u201cnuclear dust\u201d seemed designed to diminish the importance of what Mr. Trump is actually talking about \u2014 Iran\u2019s stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium, which is stored in canisters about the size of large scuba tanks.<\/p>\n