What to know as Trump extends ceasefire in Iran war

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has an­nounced an ex­ten­sion of the cease­fire in the Iran war, giv­ing me­di­a­tors ad­di­tion­al time to arrange a new round of face-to-face talks be­tween the U.S. and Iran.

Trump said he made the move, just hours be­fore the cur­rent cease­fire was to ex­pire, at Pak­istan’s re­quest as he waits for a “uni­fied pro­pos­al” from Iran.

The an­nounce­ment avert­ed a re­sump­tion of fight­ing for the time be­ing. But gaps be­tween the sides re­main wide, a planned trip to Pak­istan by Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance to lead the Amer­i­can ne­go­ti­at­ing team re­mains on hold and a U.S. block­ade of Iran re­mains in place.

Here’s what to know about where the cease­fire stands, the pos­si­ble talks in Pak­istan and oth­er is­sues sur­round­ing the war:

Cease­fire is ex­tend­ed, blame is ex­changed

Two re­gion­al of­fi­cials told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press on Tues­day that the Unit­ed States and Iran had sig­nalled they will hold a new round of talks. Pak­istan-led me­di­a­tors re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion that top ne­go­tia­tors, Vance and Iran’s par­lia­ment speak­er Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf, were ex­pect­ed to lead their teams.

But late Tues­day, Iran’s For­eign Min­istry spokesman said there was no “fi­nal de­ci­sion” on whether to at­tend. The spokesman, Es­mail Baghaei, told state TV that the lack of a de­ci­sion was be­cause of “con­tra­dic­to­ry mes­sages” and “un­ac­cept­able ac­tions” from the Amer­i­cans, in par­tic­u­lar the U.S. naval block­ade of Iran.

Vance, mean­while, called off a trip to Pak­istan, as Pak­istani lead­ers raced to try to sal­vage the talks. With a 0000 GMT dead­line loom­ing, Trump an­nounced that the cease­fire would be ex­tend­ed in­def­i­nite­ly.

Trump said he had tak­en the step at Pak­istan’s re­quest and blamed what he de­scribed as Iran’s “se­ri­ous­ly frac­tured” lead­er­ship for in­de­ci­sion. He said Pak­istan had asked him to wait un­til Iran’s lead­ers “can come up with a uni­fied pro­pos­al.” Still, he said the U.S. block­ade would con­tin­ue.

Even if Pak­istan can arrange a meet­ing, se­ri­ous chal­lenges re­main on the fu­ture of the Strait of Hor­muz, Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram and the block­ade. Iran tar­get­ed ships in the strait over the week­end. The U.S. al­so at­tacked and board­ed one Iran­ian ves­sel that tried to out­run the Amer­i­can naval block­ade in the strait — sig­nalling that the sit­u­a­tion re­mains volatile.

A frag­ile cease­fire risks show­ing cracks

The U.S. and Is­rael launched the war on Feb. 28, open­ing a six-week war that has sent oil prices ris­ing and shak­en the glob­al econ­o­my.

The cur­rent truce be­tween Iran, Is­rael and the Unit­ed States be­gan April 8 af­ter mul­ti­ple dead­lines posed by Trump that threat­ened Iran’s very “civ­i­liza­tion” at one point. Last Fri­day, a cease­fire be­tween Is­rael and the Iran-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group in Lebanon al­so took ef­fect. Both cease­fires have broad­ly held.

An ear­li­er round of ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Iran and the U.S. was held in Pak­istan from April 11 in­to the ear­ly morn­ing the fol­low­ing day. Vance took part in the high­est-lev­el talks be­tween Amer­i­ca and Iran since the 1979 Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion, which end­ed with­out an agree­ment.

Since this week­end, au­thor­i­ties in Is­lam­abad have made prepa­ra­tions sim­i­lar to those that ac­com­pa­nied the first talks, sug­gest­ing an­oth­er round loomed.

Strait of Hor­muz re­mains ef­fec­tive­ly shut

The Strait of Hor­muz, the nar­row mouth of the Per­sian Gulf through which 20% of all nat­ur­al gas and oil pass­es, re­mains ef­fec­tive­ly closed over Iran­ian at­tacks in the wa­ter­way. That in­clud­ed some at­tacks Sat­ur­day. There’s al­so a fear that Iran mined a por­tion of the strait used by tran­sit­ing ships dur­ing peace­time.

Since the war, Iran re­port­ed­ly has been charg­ing as much as $2 mil­lion a ves­sel to al­low them to pass. Open­ing the strait re­mains a key fo­cus of ne­go­ti­a­tions and Tehran’s strongest lever­age against Wash­ing­ton, par­tic­u­lar­ly as coun­tries around the world have be­gun ra­tioning en­er­gy and warn­ing of short­ages of jet fu­el.

The Unit­ed States, mean­while, has be­gun block­ing ships from Iran­ian ports. The U.S. Navy at­tacked an Iran­ian con­tain­er ship that tried to run through the U.S. block­ade this week­end, with Marines rap­pelling on­to it from he­li­copters. Iran has con­demned the in­ci­dent as “pira­cy” and a vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Iran’s nu­clear stock­pile re­mains in coun­try

All of Iran’s high­ly en­riched ura­ni­um re­mains in the coun­try, like­ly en­tombed at en­rich­ment sites bombed by the U.S. dur­ing a 12-day war last June. Iran hasn’t en­riched since then but main­tains it has the right to do so for peace­ful pur­pos­es and de­nies seek­ing nu­clear weapons. Trump, along with Is­rael, has called for Iran to com­plete­ly dis­man­tle its nu­clear pro­gram and give up its stock­pile. Iran re­ject­ed that in its 10-point pro­pos­al for end­ing the war. —JERUSALEM (AP)

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Sto­ry by JOSEF FE­D­ER­MAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

AP re­porters Jon Gam­brell in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Aamer Mad­hani in Wash­ing­ton, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Mu­nir Ahmed in Is­lam­abad con­tributed re­port­ing.