Vice President J.D. Vance is due to lead a team of United States negotiators to Islamabad on Tuesday for talks aimed at ending the war with Iran, although Tehran has not yet confirmed its participation in this latest round of talks.
Meanwhile, the fragile two-week ceasefire is set to expire on Wednesday and there is no clarity on whether it will be extended amid heightened tension in the last two days.
On April 11, the first round of US-Iran talks in Islamabad ended without any results. Since then, the US has imposed a naval blockade on all ships belonging to Iran trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has fired on ships trying to transit the vital shipping route. And early Monday, the US fired on an Iranian ship trying to pass through the narrow waterway and then seized it.
Tehran has called the ship’s seizure “theft” and threatened retaliation. He has refused to participate in the talks under the threat of threats. Trump has reiterated his warning that he will order US forces to blow up all bridges and power plants in Iran if Iran does not accept a deal on US terms.
Amidst this uncertainty over the future of the talks and ceasefire, we highlight the latest from both sides and four possible scenarios that could play out over the next few days:
What’s the latest from both sides?
Both the US and Iran are issuing threats to each other as the ceasefire is set to end in the coming hours.
The two-week ceasefire, announced by US President Donald Trump on April 7, is due to end at 8 pm Tuesday in Washington, DC (midnight in GMT, 3:30 am in Tehran and 5 am Wednesday in Islamabad). However, Trump has indicated in recent comments that he has already moved the deadline back by one day.
While Islamabad continues its preparations to host the multi-day talks, there is no confirmation yet from Iranian officials on whether they will participate.
The US President said he was confident Iran would negotiate or face “problems like they’ve never seen before”.
Trump confirmed in a Truth Social post that the US delegation plans to visit Islamabad on Tuesday. Accusing Iran of violating the ceasefire by firing on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said: “We are offering a very fair and reasonable deal, and I hope they will take it, because if they don’t, the United States will destroy every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran. No more, Mr. Good Man!”
Meanwhile, Iran said that there will be no talks under the shadow of threats.
Mohammad Reza Mohseni Sani, who sits on the National Security Commission of the Iranian parliament, cast further doubts on the prospects of talks with the US.
He said in comments carried by Iran’s Mehr news agency that “negotiations are not acceptable” in the “current situation” and accused the US of making “excessive demands” and pursuing ulterior motives for domestic gain.
“Given the current circumstances, recent aggressions, and the history of previous negotiations with the United States, God willing the next round of talks will be off the table,” he said.
Ali Waze, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group think tank, told Al Jazeera that the main hurdle before any second round of talks was “whether the US is willing to ease the pressure to make diplomacy credible and whether Iran is willing to curb its influence enough to keep the talks alive”.
Scenario 1: Negotiations take place and a tentative deal is reached
Sources close to the mediation efforts told Al Jazeera that Pakistan’s aim is to persuade the US and Iran to agree to several days of talks.
For the US, Vance is expected to be joined by Trump’s envoy and fellow real estate developer Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the same team that participated in the first round of talks. If the Iranians come, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is again expected to lead his delegation, which will also be joined by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Mediators in Islamabad aim to reach a “memorandum of understanding” between the US and Iran to buy time to achieve a final agreement and extend the ceasefire.
Waze said, “Success would not be a final agreement. It would be an interim understanding that enhances negotiations, stabilizes the ceasefire and creates a framework to trade nuclear steps for sanctions relief.”
However, there remain clear differences in the demands and expectations of both sides, including Tehran’s nuclear program, control over the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions on Iran and its frozen assets.
“If both sides do not change their stance, there can be no agreement in Islamabad,” said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House think tank.
Scenario 2: Talks end with no breakthrough but ceasefire extension
For there to be any meaningful progress in the talks, “both sides need to compromise because at the moment there is too much difference to reach an agreement,” Tabrizi told Al Jazeera.
“Unless that changes, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to reach a deal,” he said.
Trump has in recent days doubled down on his insistence that Iran halt all uranium enrichment and hand over its existing stockpile of enriched uranium. Iran has rejected those demands.
“The United States is not learning lessons from the experience,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghai said on Monday. “And that will never yield good results.”
Nevertheless, Tabrizi said, even in the absence of success in the second round of talks, both sides could agree on “some type of temporary extension of the ceasefire”, which would give diplomacy another chance.
Scenario 3: No talks but ceasefire extended
Trump told Bloomberg News on Monday that he considered a ceasefire on “Wednesday evening Washington time” and said it was “highly unlikely” that he would extend it if no deal was reached.
Still, analysts said a last-minute post on his Truth social platform extending the ceasefire would not be surprising – even if Iran refuses to come to Islamabad for talks.
“This will be a fragile truce, not a durable ceasefire,” Waze said. “As long as maritime pressure and mutual accusations continue, the risk of miscalculation will remain very high.”
“Without a diplomatic framework, this would be buying time, not creating stability,” he said.
Tabrizi agreed. He said, however, that the war has already fundamentally changed the US-Iran equation.
“President Trump is arguing that there has been regime change because the data he is dealing with is different,” Tabrizi said. “Iran probably doesn’t see the US as an existential threat until the fighting starts.”
Scenario 4: Talks fail, and ceasefire ends
Trump’s repeated threats to resume bombing Iran in the absence of an agreement also open a fourth scenario: That threat would be tested if Iranian negotiators do not travel to Islamabad for talks.
“Then a lot of bombs start going off,” Trump told PBS News on Monday when asked what would happen if the ceasefire ends. Trump said Iran “should have been there” for the talks. He said, “We will see whether it is there or not. Even if they are not there, it is okay.”
Ghalibaf said on Tuesday that Trump “in his imagination, wants to turn this negotiating table into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering”.
“We have made preparations for new cards to appear on the battlefield,” he said, suggesting that Tehran was militarily prepared to resume fighting.
But if the ceasefire breaks down, “the next round is likely to get much worse very soon,” Waze warned. “The US would likely target critical infrastructure in Iran, which would in turn burn down the rest of the region.”
