President Donald Trump has halted diplomatic engagement with Iran until further notice, the White House said on Tuesday, as Tehran hardens its position over the Strait of Hormuz and presses Washington to meet its demands. Trump said Tuesday on Truth Social that no conversations with Iran were taking place and none were scheduled, adding that the US naval blockade remained “in full force and effect.” A White House official later told Semafor that Trump’s post amounted to calling off talks with Tehran “for the foreseeable future.” The move came as the 60-day period set by the Islamabad memorandum for reaching a final agreement reached its stated end. Iranian officials, however, dispute that the negotiating clock ever formally began, arguing that Washington failed to fulfill the commitments required for negotiations to start.
Iranian Foreign Ministry officials say the United States initially fulfilled only commitments concerning the lifting of restrictions on Iranian oil sales and the naval blockade before abandoning them, while failing to implement its other obligations altogether. They therefore argue that negotiations with Washington never began and that the 60-day period cannot be considered to have expired in the manner described in media reports, although the memorandum says the two sides committed to reaching a final deal within a maximum of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent. Citing that argument, the state-run IRNA news agency wrote Tuesday that although the Islamabad memorandum is not currently being implemented, it could still serve as a basis for returning to negotiations and ending the war. “All it takes is the will on the American side to implement all of its commitments,” IRNA wrote.
Earlier in the day, Tehran-based news website Rouydad24 similarly argued that the end of the 60-day period did not necessarily mean the end of diplomacy. The intensification of the naval blockade and economic pressure, Trump’s threat to take military action against Oman if it “gets in the way” of his administration’s dealings with Tehran, and his references to back-channel contact with the Revolutionary Guards suggested that pressure and diplomacy could still proceed simultaneously, it said, with the Strait of Hormuz emerging as Iran’s main bargaining tool. “The existence of back-channel contacts with Iran, Oman’s efforts, and continued messaging from Pakistan and Qatar show that the path of diplomacy has not been completely closed,” Rouydad24 wrote. It added that “the end of the 60-day period may perhaps be better understood not as the end of negotiations, but as the end of one model of negotiations.” (Read More)
