{"id":417864,"date":"2026-04-26T03:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T03:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/417864\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T03:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T03:29:10","slug":"trump-cancels-envoys-pakistan-trip-in-blow-to-hopes-for-iran-war-breakthrough-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/417864\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump cancels envoys\u2019 Pakistan trip, in blow to hopes for Iran war breakthrough \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a> cancelled a trip by two US envoys to Iran<\/a> war mediator Pakistan on Saturday, dealing \u200ba new setback to peace prospects in the two-month conflict. Iran\u2019s foreign minister flew out of the country\u2019s capital Islamabad earlier on Saturday following talks.<\/p>\n

Trump said in a social media post that he had called off the planned visit by his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, citing what he said was confusion within the Iranian leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo \u200bmuch time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their `leadership\u2019. Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, \u2060we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is \u200ccall!!!\u201d \u200che \u200bwrote. <\/p>\n

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi earlier left the Pakistani capital without any sign of a breakthrough in talks with the country\u2019s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif and other senior officials.<\/p>\n

Araghchi later described his visit to \u2060Pakistan as \u201cvery fruitful\u201d, adding in a social media post \u200bthat he had \u201cshared Iran\u2019s position concerning [a] workable framework to permanently end the \u200bwar on Iran. Have yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iranian media reported that Araghchi had flown to \u200cOman\u2019s capital, Muscat, saying he will meet senior \u200bofficials to \u201cdiscuss and exchange [of] views on bilateral relations and regional developments\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tehran has ruled out a new round of direct talks \u2060with the United States and an Iranian diplomatic source \u2060said Tehran would not accept Washington\u2019s \u201cmaximalist \u200bdemands\u201d.<\/p>\n

Washington and Tehran are at an impasse as Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, while the US continues to block Iran\u2019s oil exports.<\/p>\n

The conflict, in which a ceasefire is in force, began with US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28th. Iran has since carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, and the war has pushed up energy prices to multiyear highs, stoking inflation and darkening global growth prospects.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Hegseth tells US allies \u2018time for free-riding is over\u2019; White House confirms fresh talks with Iran to take placeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Araghchi \u201cexplained our country\u2019s principled positions regarding the latest developments related to \u200cthe ceasefire and the complete end of \u2060the imposed war against Iran\u201d, said a statement on the foreign minister\u2019s official Telegram account. Asked about Tehran\u2019s reservations over US positions in the talks, an Iranian diplomatic source in Islamabad told Reuters: \u201cPrincipally, Iranian side will not accept \u200cmaximalist demands.\u201d <\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would \u200bcome over the weekend, while US vice-president JD Vance was ready to travel to Pakistan \u200bas well.<\/p>\n

Vance led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran in Islamabad earlier this month. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump cancelled a trip by two US envoys to Iran war mediator Pakistan on Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,11829,5461,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-417864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-jd-vance","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}