A senior Iranian official said on Monday that Tehran is “positively reviewing” its participation in fresh peace talks with the United States in Pakistan, marking a notable shift in tone from earlier statements that had flatly ruled out attendance and threatened retaliation for US aggression.
The official was careful to stress that no final decision had been made. And adding to the uncertainty, a separate source told Reuters that Vice President JD Vance widely expected to lead the American delegation had not yet left the United States, contradicting reports that he was already en route to Islamabad.
Time is not on either side’s side. The two-week ceasefire announced by Donald Trump on April 7 is set to expire at 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday midnight GMT, or 3:30 a.m. Wednesday in Iran.
The ceasefire had looked close to collapse over the weekend after US Marines boarded and disabled an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel, the M/V Touska, following a six-hour standoff in the north Arabian Sea.
US Central Command released footage showing Marines rappelling from helicopters onto the ship after US forces fired on it to disable its engines.
The vessel was reportedly headed toward Iran’s Bandar Abbas port and is believed to have been carrying dual-use items with potential military applications.
Iran’s military called it “armed piracy,” accusing Washington of blatant aggression, while noting that the presence of crew members’ families on board had constrained their response.
Tehran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei was blunt: the US had shown it was “not serious” about diplomacy and was “insisting on some unreasonable and unrealistic positions.”
China, the largest buyer of Iranian crude, weighed in sharply. President Xi Jinping called for ships to resume normal passage through the strait and urged both sides to resolve the conflict through political and diplomatic channels a direct signal of Beijing’s economic stake in the outcome.
Despite the turbulence, Pakistan pressed ahead with preparations to host a second round of talks, deploying nearly 20,000 security personnel across Islamabad road even as it remained unclear whether either delegation would actually show up.
Behind the scenes, Pakistan’s key mediator Field Marshal Asim Munir told Trump directly that the US blockade was the primary obstacle to Iran’s participation, and that it needed to be addressed for talks to proceed.
Trump, according to a Pakistani security source, promised to consider the advice.
Iran reinforced the point through official channels, with Tehran saying Pakistan was making “positive efforts” to end the blockade and secure its return to the table.
The Strait of Hormuz, meanwhile, has been reimposed under Iranian restrictions after a brief partial reopening with shipping data showing just three crossings in a 12-hour window on Monday, a virtual standstill for one of the world’s most vital energy corridors.
Oil prices climbed around 5% on Monday as traders priced in the growing risk of ceasefire collapse.
The S&P 500, which had been recovering from its US-Iran war lows at a pace comparable to the rebound from last year’s tariff-driven selloff, remains vulnerable to any further deterioration.
Trump’s rhetoric has not softened. On Sunday he warned that the US would destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran if Tehran rejected his terms.
Iran responded in kind, threatening to strike power stations and desalination plants across Gulf Arab states hosting US military bases if civilian infrastructure in Iran came under attack.
European allies, watching from the sidelines after being repeatedly criticised by Trump for failing to support the war effort, have their own concern: that Washington’s negotiating team is pushing for a quick, surface-level deal that would leave the most technically complex issues nuclear verification, sanctions architecture, Hormuz governance unresolved and requiring years of follow-on talks to untangle.
The broader human toll continues to mount. Thousands have been killed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran and in Israel’s parallel invasion of Lebanon, where a separate truce also remains in place.
Iran has responded with missile and drone strikes against Israel and Arab countries hosting US military bases.
With the ceasefire expiry hours away, talks unconfirmed and military incidents multiplying, the next 48 hours may be the most consequential of the entire conflict.
