{"id":412419,"date":"2026-04-27T00:18:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/412419\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T00:18:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T00:18:30","slug":"no-headway-in-middle-east-peace-efforts-as-us-and-iran-refuse-to-yield-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/412419\/","title":{"rendered":"No headway in Middle East peace efforts as US and Iran refuse to yield | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations between Iran<\/a> and the US faded further on Sunday, amid a deepening sense of deadlock in the nearly two-month-long conflict despite intense regional diplomatic activity.<\/p>\n

Washington and Tehran appear unwilling to moderate rhetoric or make concessions, and there are no negotiations scheduled that might bring the war to a definitive end.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Abbas Araghchi, Iran\u2019s foreign minister, returned to Pakistan<\/a> for a second consecutive day of talks with mediators after a brief trip to Oman for discussions there.<\/p>\n

Araghchi described his Pakistan trip on Saturday as \u201cvery fruitful\u201d but signalled scepticism over Washington\u2019s intentions. \u201cHave yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy,\u201d he said on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Araghchi was also due to meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as part of a trip that begins on Monday. Russia and Iran, both subject to tough western sanctions, have become increasingly close in recent years.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Donald Trump announced that he had cancelled a visit to Pakistan<\/a> by his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The two men were to take part in a second round of talks with Iran that had been tentatively scheduled for this weekend.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Florida, before being rushed out of the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association dinner<\/a> in Washington after a gunman fired shots at his security detail, Trump said the visit involved too much travel and expense for what he considered an inadequate Iranian offer.<\/p>\n

Police officers stand guard near Islamabad\u2019s Serena hotel, the venue for proposed US-Iran talks cancelled when the US delegation stayed home. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The cancellation came after Iran said it would not be attending any direct talks<\/a> while the US blockaded all shipping to or from the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Trump later claimed that Tehran had offered a new proposal for agreement within minutes of his decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey gave us a paper that should have been better and \u2013 interestingly \u2013 immediately when I cancelled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better,\u201d he told reporters, without elaborating.<\/p>\n

Pakistani officials have sought to rebuild momentum in the negotiations, briefing media that progress towards a possible \u201cbridging agreement\u201d to allow discussions to restart was being made.<\/p>\n

A round of talks in Islamabad earlier this month \u2013 in which a US delegation led by the vice-president, JD Vance, met Iranian delegates led by Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf \u2013 ended without any apparent progress towards a deal.<\/p>\n

The 21-hour session earlier exposed wide gaps on the future of the strait of Hormuz, Iran\u2019s nuclear programme and Tehran\u2019s longstanding support for militant movements around the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The talks collapsed after Iran would not agree to US demands<\/a> to end nuclear enrichment and hand over its 440kg of highly enriched uranium.<\/p>\n

Last week, Trump announced an indefinite extension of his earlier two-week ceasefire with Iran and repeated his demand that Iran allow shipping free passage in the strait of Hormuz, which in normal times carries around a fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquid natural gas supplies.<\/p>\n

Iranians at Suru Beach in Bandar Abbas alongside the strait of Hormuz. Photograph: Razieh Poudat\/ISNA\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The closure of the strategic waterway through the Gulf has sent oil prices soaring around the world, threatening a global economic downturn.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to exert economic pressure, Trump ordered the US fleet assembled off its shores to blockade Iran, which is heavily dependent on the sale of oil to stave off total economic collapse.<\/p>\n

Analysts say Iranian leaders are aware the US president faces pressure himself from US voters unhappy at rising fuel prices, and may be forced into concessions earlier than Tehran. Midterm elections are due in the US in November.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whose grip on decision-making in Tehran, experts believe has been reinforced during the conflict, said it had no intention of lifting its blockade.<\/p>\n

Iran wants to raise a toll on passage through the strait, forcing each passing tanker to pay $2m. This could lead to higher prices for years to come.<\/p>\n

The IRGC wrote on its official Telegram channel: \u201cControlling the strait of Hormuz and maintaining the shadow of its deterrent effects over America and the White House\u2019s supporters in the region is the definitive strategy of Islamic Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s military warned in a statement carried by state media that continued US \u201cblockading, banditry and piracy\u201d would lead to retaliation.<\/p>\n

Trump has ordered the military to \u201cshoot and kill\u201d Iranian vessels that could be placing mines. Though the US has sunk almost all of Iran\u2019s conventional navy, small fast boats used by the IRGC still pose a significant threat. Last week three ships were fired on by Iranian forces.<\/p>\n

Analysts said Iran had held the upper hand since the abortive first round of talks in Islamabad.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the US and Iran put lists of respectively 15 and 10 maximalist demands on the table that transgressed known red lines of their interlocutors,\u201d Hamidreza Azizi and Erwin van Veen wrote last week<\/a> for the Dutch Clingendael Institute of International Relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut neither the military situation nor the military outlook at the time supported the idea that major concessions were on offer compared [with] prewar positions. If anything, the strategic stalemate that led to the ceasefire favoured Iran because the US cannot reopen the strait of Hormuz without a large-scale and risky ground operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing on Truth Social before the Washington dinner shooting, Trump said there was \u201ctremendous infighting and confusion\u201d within Iran\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody knows who is in charge, including them,\u201d he posted. \u201cAlso, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Analysts say that though there are deep divisions among Iranian leaders and factions, all are committed to presenting a unified front to the US.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said last week there were \u201cno hardliners or moderates\u201d in Tehran and that the country stood united behind its supreme leader.<\/p>\n

Tanks and diggers in southern Lebanon, seen from the Israeli side of the border. Photograph: Florion Goga\/Reuters<\/p>\n

A further challenge is to maintain the fragile ceasefire in Lebanon, which Tehran sees as essential to its participation in any talks. Israel struck southern Lebanon on Saturday, killing at least six people it said were Hezbollah militants, and several rockets and drones were launched at Israel from Lebanon. Fourteen people were killed and 37 wounded in strikes in the country\u2019s south on Sunday, according to Lebanon\u2019s health ministry.<\/p>\n

The conflict is one of the widest in geographic extent in the Middle East since the second world war, with violent attacks from Azerbaijan to Oman and even in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

At least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran by joint US-Israeli strikes, according to local medical authorities. About 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, where Israel launched a relentless offensive after Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel in retaliation for the Israeli strike in Tehran which killed Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei<\/a>, and launched the war.<\/p>\n

More than a dozen people have been killed in Gulf Arab states and 23 in Israel by Iran\u2019s retaliatory attacks, including those launched by its proxies. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, 13 US service members in the region and six UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have been killed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations between Iran and the US faded further on Sunday, amid a deepening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-412419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}