- Iran says was ‘inches away’ from deal with US in Islamabad
President Donald Trump said Sunday he does not care if Iran comes back to negotiations with the United States after talks in Pakistan failed to produce a deal.
“I don’t care if they come back or not. If they don’t come back, I’m fine,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, upon his return from Florida.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday that Tehran had been just “inches away” from a deal with Washington during weekend talks with the United States in Islamabad.
“In intensive talks at highest level in 47 years, Iran engaged with US in good faith to end war,” Araghchi said in a post on X.
But when “just inches away” from an agreement in Islamabad, which he described as “Islamabad MoU,” he added: “We encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade.”
“Zero lessons earned,” Araghchi added.
Weekend talks between the US and Iran failed to reach a deal to end the war with Iran, jeopardizing a fragile two-week ceasefire.
The talks in Islamabad, which ran from Saturday into early Sunday, were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Towards enforcing Trump’s order, the U.S. military said it will begin a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports and coastal areas on Monday, after weekend talks failed to reach a deal to end the war with Iran, jeopardizing a fragile two-week ceasefire.
The US Central Command said that the US blockade, starting at 10 a.m. ET on Monday (1400 GMT), would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.”
Vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports will not be impeded, the US military said. Additional information would be provided to commercial mariners through a formal notice prior to the start of the blockade, it said.
Alarabiya, AFP
