Vice President J.D. Vance is expected to fly to Pakistan on Tuesday for peace talks with Iran, with tensions in the Middle East running hot and negotiations on a knife-edge before the expiration of a two-week ceasefire.
President Trump said Monday he is under no pressure to reach an agreement with Iran, although he thinks a deal is within reach.
“If Iran’s new leaders (Regime Change!) are smart, Iran can have a great and prosperous future!” Mr. Trump said on social media.
The conflict is at a critical juncture. The U.S. and Iran agreed to a pause in fighting on April 7.
That ceasefire expires on Tuesday. After that, “then lots of bombs start going off,” Mr. Trump told PBS News on Monday.
The president told Bloomberg News it is “highly unlikely” he would extend the ceasefire if the two sides cannot reach a deal, but he also told the outlet that the pause in fighting will expire “Wednesday evening Washington time.”
SEE ALSO: Trump insists Israel did not drag him into war with Iran
Officials in Tehran sent mixed signals on whether they were willing to attend the planned talks in Islamabad.
They said Washington’s actions around the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire and the ongoing naval blockade of Iranian ports undermined trust and made negotiations difficult.
“Honoring commitments is the basis of meaningful dialogue,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday on X. “Deep historical mistrust in Iran toward U.S. gov conduct remains, while unconstructive & contradictory signals from American officials carry a bitter message; they seek Iran’s surrender. Iranians do not submit to force.”
However, multiple media reports said Tehran planned to send a delegation.
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Pakistan is trying to mediate a peace deal after a tense weekend cast doubt on the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East.
The U.S. Navy on Sunday fired on an Iranian-flagged commercial vessel attempting to travel around Mr. Trump’s blockade of Iranian naval ports in the Strait of Hormuz.
SEE ALSO: Trump says Democrats, news media rooting against U.S. as war talks with Iran play out
The incident was the first of its kind since the start of the blockade. Tehran saw it as a violation of the two-week ceasefire between the two countries.
Iranian officials also clamped down on oil traffic through the strait, despite signaling they planned to reopen the vital waterway.
The price of Brent crude oil, an international benchmark, rose amid the tensions to more than $90 per barrel. Trading on Wall Street was flat Monday as investors tried to make sense of the situation.
The U.S. and Israel initiated their military operation against Iran on Feb. 28, killing the regime’s supreme leader and other top officials while decimating the country’s navy.
Mr. Trump says his primary aim is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
On Monday, the president pushed back against claims that Israel pushed him into the war. However, he said the October 2023 terror attack on Israel by Iran-backed Palestinian militants in Hamas colored his view of Tehran’s regime.
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“Israel never talked me into the war with Iran, the results of Oct. 7th, added to my lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON, did,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Mr. Trump confirmed over the weekend that the U.S. delegation would travel to Islamabad, Pakistan, on Monday for another round of talks.
Mr. Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected to lead the team.
The timing of Mr. Vance’s travel was uncertain on Monday. An administration source told The Washington Times that a U.S. delegation planned to travel to Islamabad “soon.”
Mr. Trump on Monday toggled between saying a peace deal could be made quickly and insisting he is in no rush.
“Time is not my adversary, the only thing that matters is that we finally, after 47 years, straighten out the MESS that other Presidents let happen because they didn’t have the Courage or Foresight to do what had to be done with respect to Iran,” he said on social media.
Global leaders in Europe and Asia would like the parties to hurry up and end the war. Oil shocks from restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz have caused energy shortfalls around the world.
“Now that the window for peace has been opened, favorable conditions need to be created to end the conflict at an early date,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Monday.
At home, Democrats have accused Mr. Trump of launching a costly “war of choice” that ignored domestic problems and increased the cost of gas.
The national average price of a gallon of gas stood at $4.04 on Monday, down 8 cents from a week ago but over a dollar more than it cost when the war started, according to the AAA motor club.
Eleven Senate Democrats wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that faulted his approach to the Iran war and said it put civilians at risk.
It pointed to a missile strike on a school in Minab, Iran, in the early days of the war that killed a reported 175 children, plus strikes that hit a school and sports hall in Lamerd and destroyed a highway bridge used for commerce and travel.
The letter also faulted the use of scatterable anti-tank landmines, saying they killed at least one civilian.
“We are concerned that these were all preventable tragedies. The high human toll of this war reflects the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,” the senators wrote late Sunday.
The Pentagon, when asked for comment on Monday, said that “as with all congressional correspondences, the department will respond directly to the authors.”
