US and Iran ‘ready for war’ as ceasefire end looms, talks in limbo

AH-64 Apaches fly above the Strait of Hormuz during a patrol on April 17. The United States and Iran each warned they were ready for war as the clock ticked down Tuesday on a ceasefire, with uncertainty on talks that President Donald Trump had announced would resume in Pakistan. The White House said Vice President JD Vance was ready to fly back to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, which was preparing for a second round of talks on ending the war that has engulfed the Middle East and shaken global markets.

But Tehran’s cleric-run government declined to confirm that it would participate and accused the United States of violating the truce through its blockade of Iranian ports and seizure of a ship. “By imposing a blockade and violating the ceasefire, Trump wants to turn this negotiating table into a surrender table or justify renewed hostilities, as he sees fit,” said Iran’s powerful parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who headed the delegations to talks two weeks ago in Pakistan. “We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the last two weeks we have been preparing to show new cards on the battlefield,” he wrote on X.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned of targeting any vessel attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without permission. Trump has similarly accused Tehran of violating the truce by harassing vessels in the key strait, the transit passage for about a fifth of the world’s oil that Iran had all but shut in retaliation for the war launched February 28 by the United States and Israel. The channel in peacetime sees around 120 daily transits, according to Lloyd’s List, a shipping industry intelligence site.

[paywall]

On Tuesday, the site reported that more than 20 Iranian so-called “shadow vessels”, had transited past the US blockade. In one of a series of posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump insisted that the blockade was “absolutely destroying” Iran and said it will not end “until there is a ‘DEAL’,” in which the United States is pressing for Iranian concessions on its contested nuclear programme. Trump told PBS News that Iran was “supposed to be there” at the talks in Pakistan.

[/paywall]