Diplomatic efforts to end the US-Israel war on Iran are hanging by a thread as a two-week ceasefire approaches its Wednesday expiry, with Tehran refusing to negotiate under what it calls the "shadow of threats" and Washington maintaining a naval blockade of Iranian ports that has become the central obstacle to any resumption of talks.
Iran said on Monday it had not yet decided whether to attend a second round of peace negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, which the United States had hoped to launch before the ceasefire deadline of approximately 8 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran was "positively reviewing" its participation — a notable softening from earlier outright rejections — but Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi cited "continued violations of the ceasefire" as a major obstacle. Iran's chief negotiator and parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf went further, accusing President Donald Trump of seeking Iran's surrender and declaring: "We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats." Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian echoed that sentiment, warning that "Iranians do not submit to force." Meanwhile, reports emerged Tuesday that US Vice President JD Vance was preparing to travel to Islamabad to lead the American negotiating team, signalling that Washington still expects talks to proceed.
The immediate flashpoint is the US blockade of Iranian ports, which Tehran says must be lifted before meaningful talks can begin. On Sunday, US Marines boarded an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel heading toward Iran's Bandar Abbas port after a standoff, with Washington asserting the ship carried dual-use military goods. Iran described the seizure as "armed piracy" and vowed to retaliate, though officials said they were constrained by the presence of crew members' families on board. China, the largest buyer of Iranian crude oil, expressed concern over the "forced interception" and called for normal shipping to resume. Pakistan's mediator, Field Marshal Asim Munir, reportedly urged Trump to consider ending the blockade to unblock the talks; Trump said he would think about it but showed no sign of acting. Oil prices rose roughly five per cent amid fears the ceasefire would collapse, while traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passes — fell to near standstill.
Underlying the immediate crisis are structural tensions that analysts warn could outlast any short-term deal. The first round of talks in Pakistan on April 11–12 broke down over Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran insists it has an inalienable right to pursue for civilian purposes. Trump has said he wants a deal superior to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — a multilateral nuclear agreement that took 20 months to negotiate and from which Trump withdrew in 2018 during his first term. He expressed confidence on social media that an agreement could be reached "relatively quickly," but also warned that "lots of bombs" would "start going off" if the ceasefire expired without progress.
Analysts caution that even if talks resume, the conditions for a lasting peace are not yet in place. The war, which began on February 28 and has killed thousands of people, is deeply asymmetric: Iran cannot match US and Israeli conventional military power, but has sought to impose costs through closures of the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on regional infrastructure. This dynamic — in which neither side can achieve a decisive victory nor afford an open-ended conflict — makes a "frozen conflict" scenario more likely than a comprehensive settlement, comparable in some respects to protracted unresolved disputes in the Korean Peninsula or eastern Ukraine. The ceasefire's expiry later this week will be the first major test of whether diplomacy can hold that fragile status quo together.