Hopes for US-Iran diplomacy still alive as fighting intensifies over the Strait of Hormuz

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has intensified over control of the Strait of Hormuz, but hopes for a possible diplomatic solution have shown stubborn signs of life.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected suggestions that Islamabad had abandoned efforts to bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table after brokering an initial ceasefire agreement last month that has now collapsed.

“Let me dispel the impression that Pakistan has done hands up, and this is not the case,” ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said at a news conference, adding that the parties eventually “will have to come to the negotiating table to settle all outstanding issues.”

Even the top negotiators for Iran and the U.S. signaled they have not walked away from talks. In a podcast interview with Joe Rogan that aired Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration is “not going to bomb and bomb and bomb” and noted that “you’ve got to actually be willing to talk and to try to figure out the problem.”

“We’re going try to use our military force as one of the many tools that we have to solve the problem,” Vance said, adding that “diplomacy is another tool.”

Mediators from countries that include Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt have been working to resume talks, according to regional officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy. They noted that neither side has notified Pakistan that it was officially withdrawing or terminating the initial ceasefire agreement.

The backchannel efforts have been overshadowed by the escalating attacks, with the U.S. military on Thursday conducting strikes deeper into Iran and firing on a ship that the U.S. accused of trying to break its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Iran has retaliated by launching missiles and drones at U.S. allies in the region and warned that its attacks could grow to target “all the infrastructure in the region.”

The U.S. and Iran are in a delicate and potentially pivotal moment that “leaves open the possibility of moving up the escalation ladder,” said Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the Washington-based International Crisis Group.

The push is on for renewing negotiations

Andrabi, the spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry, acknowledged that mediation between Iran and the U.S. had become increasingly difficult. But he said peace efforts remained alive.

“It can be put on the backburner, but it stays,” Andrabi said, adding that “whenever the parties exhaust the logic of escalation, the formula for peace is there.”

The regional officials involved in mediation attempts said efforts to salvage the deal to end the war were continuing this week. They acknowledged that the 60-day negotiating process spelled out in the interim deal has halted. But they said mediators have been working to persuade both sides to return to the negotiating table.

Officials say the key point of dispute is management of the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial energy shipping route that is Tehran’s greatest source of leverage. The language in the interim deal is vague. Iran claims it has the authority to arrange shipping transit through the strait, while the U.S. says the waterway is meant to be open to free passage and has tried to arrange an alternate shipping route along Oman’s coast.

In his interview with Rogan, Vance acknowledged that diplomacy might ultimately be the only way forward.

“I’m very frustrated by the Americans and frankly by people in other countries who are like, ‘You cannot negotiate with the Iranians,’” the vice president said. “Well, then what is your proposal to get people to stop shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz?”

Trump increases the threats and says Iran ‘better behave’

The fighting resumed over Iran’s unwillingness to allow oil tankers and other commercial vessels to navigate freely through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital Persian Gulf shipping route through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows. Iran effectively choked off the usual stream of commerce by attacking commercial vessels that ignored its rules, disrupting world energy markets and driving up prices that could pose problems for Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

Asked by reporters in recent days if he is still open to negotiations, Trump has repeated his previous threats that Iran returning to the table is the only thing that can avoid U.S. attacks on civilian infrastructure like bridges and power plants. But the Republican president said he would not put a timeline on it.

“I don’t like giving deadlines, but they pretty much know, they know the story,” Trump said in Pennsylvania on Wednesday. “They better behave.”

Moments before, Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator said the country is not declaring last month’s interim deal void. But Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Iran’s commitment depends on continued implementation by the United States. If Washington fails to honor its obligations, Iran would have no reason to remain bound by it, he argued.

The initial June 17 agreement called for a permanent end to hostilities and a reopening of the strait and started a 60-day negotiating clock to reach a final deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program and other issues.

Qalibaf also suggested that Iran is not seeking to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed indefinitely. He said Tehran’s objective is to preserve what he called “Iranian arrangements” governing navigation through the waterway, while allowing the maximum safe passage of commercial shipping under those rules.

US is trying a naval blockade and more strikes to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — again

To stop Iran’s attacks on ships, Trump has stepped up military attacks and reinstituted an earlier Navy blockade of Iranian ports to inflict economic pain.

But it would be unrealistic to expect the U.S. to eliminate Iran’s ability to launch missiles and drones into the strait anytime soon, said Bradley Bowman, a former Army helicopter pilot and now a scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.

“Unfortunately, Iran only needs to hit a ship every now and then to create serious problems and dilemmas for insurers and ship captains and reduce the flow of traffic in the strait,” he said. “That reduced flow exerts significant economic and political pressure on Washington, especially as midterm elections approach. Iran understands the leverage it now has — and so does Trump.”

At the same time, Bowman and other experts are not convinced that more strikes and economic pressure will get Iran to negotiate.

“We’re doing things that have not affected Iranian behavior in the past,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and a senior defense adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So why would it affect Iranian behavior now?”

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Amiri reported from New York, Magdy from Cairo and Ahmed from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.