US-Iran peace talks could resume in next two days, Trump says

Donald Trump has said that US-Iranian peace talks could resume in Islamabad over the next two days, and complimented the work of Pakistan’s army chief as mediator.The US president was speaking on Tuesday to a New York Post reporter who had gone to Islamabad for the first round of ceasefire talks over the weekend. After an interview discussing prospects for negotiations, the reporter said the president had called her back “with an update”.“You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump said. He added that Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was doing a “great job” in arranging the talks.“He’s fantastic, and therefore it’s more likely that we go back there,” Trump said.Munir is a powerful figure in Pakistan and has good relations with Trump, who has called him his “favourite field marshal”, and with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.A Pakistani official said on Tuesday that he expected talks to restart soon, but it may take a day or two longer than Trump suggested. “The game is on,” the official said.Islamabad is racing to arrange a meeting date that provides enough time for negotiations before the two-week ceasefire ends on Wednesday 22 April.Trump’s comments followed a wave of speculation about a new round of negotiations, after 21 hours of talks on the weekend. Those ended with the US vice-president, JD Vance, walking out on Sunday morning, claiming that Iran had failed to make an “affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon”.After the talks ended, Trump declared a US naval blockade on ships using Iranian ports in the Gulf in an effort to increase pressure on the country’s economy, and as a counter to Iran’s near-total closure of the strait of Hormuz to ships using other Gulf ports soon after the US-Israeli attack began on 28 February.US Central Command reported that over a 24-hour period “no ships made it past the US blockade and six merchant vessels complied with direction from US forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman”.Independent reports confirmed that some tankers that had been approaching the strait on Monday had turned around; one tanker, the Rich Starry, reversed course again and passed through the waterway.10:59