In major about-face, Trump announces extension of Iran truce hours before deadline

US president says ceasefire being extended until Islamic Republic’s ‘seriously fractured’ leadership offers ‘a unified proposal,’ blockade to remain in place; Vance postpones Islamabad trip

Hours before a two-week ceasefire with Iran was set to expire, US President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he was extending the truce for the time being and that the US will hold off on attacking the Islamic Republic, after both countries warned that without a deal they were prepared to resume fighting.

According to Trump, the decision to extend the ceasefire was made at the request of Pakistani mediators, who said more time was needed for a fractured Iranian leadership to submit a proposal on a deal to permanently end the war. A second round of talks had been planned for Tuesday before being pushed to Wednesday and then delayed indefinitely by Trump, as the US and Pakistan await Iran’s response to the latest American proposal.

The move amounted to a major about-face for Trump, who repeatedly insisted — as recently as as earlier in the day — that he would not issue an extension of the ceasefire, which was supposed to expire at around 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time (1:30 a.m. Israel time).

“Based on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured — not unexpectedly so — and upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“I have therefore directed our military to continue the blockade and in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” Trump added.

Before the announcement, US Vice President JD Vance, who is expected to lead US negotiators if talks continue, had called off his trip to Pakistan, a US official said, while Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were expected in Washington for consultations about how to proceed. Iran said it hadn’t decided whether to participate.

Pakistani leaders, including Sharif, worked intensively late Tuesday to get both sides to agree to a second round of ceasefire talks, with Pakistan’s premier later thanking Trump for accepting his request to extend the truce.

Sharif expressed his hope in a statement on X that the sides would respect the ceasefire and reach a comprehensive “peace deal” during a second round of talks in Islamabad, without specifying when those negotiations will be held. A first round of talks on April 11 and 12, which marked the highest-level negotiations between the US and Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, ended without an agreement.

There was no immediate comment from Iran’s most senior leaders on Trump’s announcement, but Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Iran had not asked for a ceasefire extension and repeated threats to break the US blockade by force. An adviser to Iran’s lead negotiator, the speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Trump’s declaration carried little weight.

“Trump’s ceasefire extension is certainly a ploy to buy time for a surprise strike,” Mahdi Mohammadi, the parliament speaker’s adviser, said in a statement on social media, calling the US blockade an ongoing military aggression. “The time for Iran to take the initiative has come.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei earlier told Iran’s state TV there has been “no final decision” on whether to attend because of “unacceptable actions” by the US, apparently referencing the blockade.

Israel doubts deal coming, preparing for war

Israel, meanwhile, is skeptical that a deal will be reached between Iran and the US, and is jointly preparing with Washington for the war’s resumption, a senior defense official told the Kan public broadcaster Tuesday.

“The Iranians are trying to stall for time and are speaking out of both sides of their mouth. We and the Americans are coordinated and prepared to resume the war immediately,” the official said.

Israel and the US have been preparing for a resumption of the war since the ceasefire began, sources familiar with the matter told the network, including conducting exercises involving fighter jets and refueling tankers across the Middle East.

During the visit of CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper to Israel last week, joint plans and a target bank were approved, including strikes on national and energy infrastructure across Iran, according to the report.

Those attacks would be intended to apply further pressure on the Iranians to agree to relinquish their nuclear program and enriched uranium, the report said.

Even if the current war ends, the leader of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebel group said, “There is no doubt that further rounds of fighting are coming, as it is merely a truce within a continuous conflict with the enemy.”

In a televised speech on Tuesday, Abdul Malik al-Houthi warned that escalation in the region is “possibly high” as the “fragile” ceasefire is nearing an end.

US says its forces board sanctioned oil tanker

On Tuesday, the US said its forces boarded an oil tanker previously sanctioned for smuggling Iranian crude oil in Asia. The Pentagon said in a social media post that US forces boarded the M/T Tifani “without incident.”

The US military did not say where the vessel had been boarded, though ship-tracking data showed the Tifani in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia on Tuesday. The Pentagon statement added that “international waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.”

The US military on Sunday seized an Iranian container ship, the first interception under a blockade of Iranian ports. Iran’s joint military command called the armed boarding an act of piracy and a violation of the ceasefire.

Strait of Hormuz control key to negotiations

The US imposed the blockade to pressure Tehran into ending its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane through which 20 percent of the world’s natural gas and crude oil transits in peacetime.

Iran’s grip on the strait has sent oil prices soaring. Brent crude, the international standard, was trading at close to $95 per barrel on Tuesday, up more than 30% from February 28, the day that Israel and the US attacked Iran to start the war.

Before the war began, the Strait of Hormuz had been fully open to international shipping. Trump has demanded that vessels again be allowed to transit unimpeded.

European Union transportation ministers were meeting Tuesday in Brussels to discuss how to protect consumers after the head of the International Energy Agency warned that Europe has “maybe six weeks ” of jet fuel supplies remaining.

Over the weekend, Iran said that it had received new proposals from Washington, but also suggested that a wide gap remains between the sides. Issues that derailed the last round of negotiations included Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, its regional proxies and the strait.

Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Tuesday accused the United States of wanting Iran to surrender.

“We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats,” he wrote in an X post.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.