Doubts over talks between Iran and US after violence flares in Strait of Hormuz

Pak­istan moved ahead Mon­day with prepa­ra­tions for a new round of talks be­tween the Unit­ed States and Iran two days be­fore a ten­u­ous cease­fire is set to ex­pire, even as re­newed con­flict around the Strait of Hor­muz raised ques­tions about whether the meet­ing would take place.

Over the week­end, the U.S. at­tacked and seized an Iran­ian-flagged car­go ves­sel that it said had tried to evade its block­ade of Iran­ian ports.

Iran’s joint mil­i­tary com­mand vowed to re­spond, and its for­eign min­is­ter, Ab­bas Aragchi, told his Pak­istani coun­ter­part that Amer­i­can threats to Iran­ian ships and ports were “clear signs” of Wash­ing­ton’s disin­gen­u­ous­ness ahead of the planned talks, Iran state me­dia re­port­ed.

With ten­sions flar­ing and the cease­fire due to ex­pire mid­week, Pak­istan pushed for talks to re­sume Tues­day as planned. Pak­istan said Mon­day that In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Mohsin Naqvi held sep­a­rate meet­ings in Is­lam­abad with the Iran­ian am­bas­sador and the act­ing U.S. am­bas­sador to dis­cuss arrange­ments.

Iran throt­tled traf­fic through the strait, which con­nects the Per­sian Gulf to the open seas, short­ly af­ter the U.S. and Is­rael at­tacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war. The U.S. has al­so in­sti­tut­ed a block­ade of Iran­ian ports. Rough­ly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade nor­mal­ly pass­es through the strait.

Is­rael-Lebanon talked to re­sume, of­fi­cial says

Mean­while, his­toric diplo­mat­ic talks be­tween Is­rael and Lebanon were set to re­sume Thurs­day in Wash­ing­ton, an Is­raeli of­fi­cial and a U.S. of­fi­cial said. Both spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the be­hind-the-scenes talks.

There was no im­me­di­ate con­fir­ma­tion from Lebanon.

The Is­raeli and Lebanese am­bas­sadors met last week for the first di­rect diplo­mat­ic talks in decades. Is­rael says the talks are aimed at dis­arm­ing Hezbol­lah and reach­ing a peace agree­ment with Lebanon.

A 10-day cease­fire be­gan Fri­day in Lebanon, where fight­ing be­tween Is­rael and Iran-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants broke out two days af­ter the U.S. and Is­rael launched their war on Iran.

Me­di­a­tors said fight­ing in Lebanon, which has killed more than 2,290 peo­ple, was un­der­min­ing ef­forts to end the con­flict be­tween Iran and the U.S.

Hezbol­lah op­pos­es the talks but has ob­served the cease­fire.

Trump says Vance among US ne­go­tia­tors head­ed to Pak­istan

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in­di­cat­ed that Amer­i­can ne­go­tia­tors were trav­el­ing Mon­day to the Pak­istani cap­i­tal.

“They’re head­ing over now,” Trump told the New York Post in an in­ter­view. “They’ll be there tonight.”

Trump told the news­pa­per the del­e­ga­tion in­clud­ed Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance, spe­cial en­voy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kush­n­er, Trump’s son-in-law. Ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials de­clined to con­firm whether Vance was en route to Is­lam­abad.

Trump told Bloomberg News that he was “high­ly un­like­ly” to re­new the cease­fire with Iran.

Iran­ian For­eign Min­istry spokesper­son Es­mail Baghaei told re­porters in Tehran on Mon­day that there were no plans yet to at­tend the talks with the U.S. But at the same time, he did not rule it out.

Two Pak­istani of­fi­cials said Mon­day that Iran has ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to send a del­e­ga­tion to Is­lam­abad. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to speak to the press.

Over the week­end, Iran said it had re­ceived new pro­pos­als from the U.S. but sug­gest­ed that a wide gap re­mained be­tween the sides. Is­sues that de­railed the last round of ne­go­ti­a­tions in­clud­ed Iran’s nu­clear en­rich­ment pro­gram, its re­gion­al prox­ies and the Strait of Hor­muz.

Iran says more than 3,000 have been killed in coun­try so far

Since the war start­ed, at least 3,375 peo­ple have been killed in Iran, ac­cord­ing to a new toll re­leased Mon­day in of­fi­cial Iran­ian me­dia by Ab­bas Mas­je­di, the head of Iran’s Le­gal Med­i­cine Or­ga­ni­za­tion. He did not break down ca­su­al­ties among civil­ians and se­cu­ri­ty forces, in­stead just say­ing that 2,875 were male and 496 were fe­male. Mas­je­di said 383 of the dead were chil­dren 18 years old and un­der.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, 23 peo­ple have died in Is­rael and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fif­teen Is­raeli sol­diers in Lebanon and 13 U.S. ser­vice mem­bers through­out the re­gion have been killed.

Oil prices on the rise again af­ter re­newed con­flict in Strait of Hor­muz

Iran’s grip on the strait has al­so sent oil prices sky­rock­et­ing and giv­en rise to one of the worst glob­al en­er­gy crises in decades.

Oil prices re­cov­ered slight­ly fol­low­ing Iran’s an­nounce­ment that the strait was be­ing re­opened fol­low­ing the Lebanon cease­fire an­nounce­ment.

But then Trump said the U.S. block­ade “will re­main in full force” un­til Tehran reach­es a deal with Wash­ing­ton. The U.S. mil­i­tary said Mon­day it has di­rect­ed 27 ships to re­turn to Iran­ian ports since the block­age be­gan last week. The U.S. seizure of an Iran­ian car­go ship Sun­day was the first in­ter­cep­tion un­der the block­ade.

Iran’s joint mil­i­tary com­mand called the armed board­ing an act of pira­cy and a cease­fire vi­o­la­tion, the state broad­cast­er said. Iran’s mil­i­tary vowed to again en­force re­stric­tions im­posed ear­ly in the war. Iran on Sat­ur­day fired at ships try­ing to tran­sit.

Oil prices were up again in trad­ing on Mon­day, with Brent crude, the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, at about $93 a bar­rel — up from about $70 a bar­rel be­fore the war start­ed.

Iran ear­ly Mon­day warned it could keep up the glob­al eco­nom­ic pain as ships re­mained un­able to tran­sit the strait, with hun­dreds of ves­sels wait­ing at each end for clear­ance.

“The choice is clear: ei­ther a free oil mar­ket for all, or the risk of sig­nif­i­cant costs for every­one,” Mo­ham­mad Reza Aref, first vice pres­i­dent of Iran, said in a so­cial me­dia post.

Is­rael con­demns sol­dier de­fac­ing Je­sus stat­ue in Lebanon

In oth­er de­vel­op­ments, Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu con­demned the de­fac­ing of a stat­ue of Je­sus Christ by an Is­raeli sol­dier in Lebanon, say­ing he was “stunned and sad­dened.”

Pho­tos sur­faced over the week­end of the sol­dier us­ing a sledge­ham­mer to smash the head of a top­pled Je­sus stat­ue. The Is­raeli mil­i­tary con­firmed the im­ages were gen­uine, set­ting off a wave of con­dem­na­tion. —IS­LAM­ABAD (AP)

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Sto­ry by MU­NIR AHMED, JON GAM­BRELL and DAVID RIS­ING | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Jon Gam­brell re­port­ed from Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and David Ris­ing from Bangkok. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Melanie Lid­man in Tel Aviv, Is­rael; Josef Fe­d­er­man in Jerusalem; Joshua Boak and Matthew Lee in Wash­ing­ton and Russ Bynum in Sa­van­nah, Geor­gia, con­tributed to this re­port.