New setback on the horizon of a possible end to the war against Iran. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Saturday that he had suspended the trip of his envoys to the peace talks in Islamabad (Pakistan). First he said it with a few brief statements to two Washington media outlets, and then, He confirmed it on his social network. “Too much time wasted traveling, and too much work to do!” wrote Trump, who, once again, used the argument that if there is no progress in ending the war launched on February 28 by Washington together with Israel, the blame lies with the ayatollah regime, and the “confusion that reigns among its leaders.”
“No one knows who is in charge, not even themselves. Plus, we hold all the cards and they hold none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” concludes the message in Truth Social. The Republican also warned: “Don’t make us take 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.”
The decision to abort the mission of his chief negotiators, the special envoy and personal friend of the president, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, was announced later after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi left Islamabad after holding a long series of meetings with senior Pakistani military and civilian authorities. He did so without waiting for the arrival of the United States Government envoys, scheduled for this Saturday. It was a day when Washington woke up with a familiar ritual: with the hope that emissaries from the White House were preparing to travel but without certainty as to when or how they would do so.
It was the second time this week that something similar happened. Last Tuesday, Kushner and Witkoff were scheduled to take a flight from Florida, where they live, to Europe, and from there make a jump to Pakistan, where they were going to meet with the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, who had arrived from Washington. All of these plans were canceled at the last minute due to, as the White House later explained, the lack of a valid interlocutor for the regime. That day, Trump postponed without setting a new date the deadline that he himself had set for the end of the two-week ceasefire that, again, he had decided on his own.
After the latest negotiating failure and with the talks back to square one, the horizon for the end of the war is more diffuse than ever. It is not clear whether, in view of this new setback, Trump will decide to resume hostilities, but it is clear that both the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, and Israel have warned that they are ready to resume the language of weapons as soon as the commander in chief gives the order.
Araqchi left the Asian country this Saturday with his delegation heading to Oman, the next stop on a tour that will also take him to Russia. In X, he wrote that he had shared a new proposal with Pakistani officials, which he did not elaborate on. “It remains to be seen if the United States is really serious about diplomacy,” he added.
Very fruitful visit to Pakistan, whose good offices and brotherly efforts to bring back peace to our region we very much value.
Shared Iran’s position concerning workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy.
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) April 25, 2026
The Iranian minister had indicated from the beginning that his visit did not include any meeting with American representatives. That did not stop the White House from will announce on Friday the imminent trip of Kushner and Witkoff to resume talks with the enemy after the failure of the first round a couple of weeks ago, also in Islamabad.
Vance’s role
The delegation was then led by Vance. This time, Trump preferred to keep that letter to himself, also given that the president of the Iranian Parliament, Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf, was not called upon to participate either. The White House considers Qalibaf to be the head of the Tehran delegation and the only counterpart equal to Vance, who is in the delicate situation. He is on a mission to end a war whose start he opposed, as do other prominent figures in a now fractured MAGA movement. Make America Great Againa Trumpist slogan that calls for returning the United States to its greatness).
Kushner and Witkoff have been working for months with Iranian officials on a possible agreement on Iranian nuclear material, both on the future of its atomic bomb program and on the fate of its stockpile of already enriched uranium. Those talks were abruptly interrupted by the surprise attack (also for US allies, except for Israel) on February 28.
The First round of negotiations to end the war ended without agreementafter a day of dialogue that lasted 21 hours. Vance attributed the failure to Tehran’s failure to accept Washington’s conditions and warned that what it left on the table was the last offer from the White House. The points of disagreement between both parties have remained stagnant for weeks and have to do with the demands of the United States regarding the end of Tehran’s nuclear program (Washington asks for a 20-year moratorium, compared to Iran, which only agrees to agree to it for five), as well as with the Strait of Hormuz.
That bottleneck of the Persian Gulf, vital for the global hydrocarbon trade, a fifth of which passes through those waters, has been de facto blocked by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for weeks. Added to this was a second blockade on April 8 ordered by Trump. This Friday, the Pentagon reported that 34 ships originating from or destined for or from Iranian ports had turned around, forced by the deterrence of the US Navy, which this week seized one of those ships.
A day before announcing the trip of his envoys to Pakistan, and therefore giving hope to a stalled negotiation, Trump launched a new threat on Thursday by communicating in Truth that he had given the order to the Navy to “shoot to kill” any ship that lays mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
The president of the United States, who boasts of having destroyed 159 enemy Navy ships, was referring to the fleet of small boats of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, boats with the capacity to launch missiles and drones. In the previous hours, three ships had been attacked in the strait, two of which were seized and redirected to Iranian ports for trying to cross it without permission from the authorities of the Islamic Republic.
