Iran pushes back after Trump announces new round of talks.

People walk near the debris of buildings destroyed by airstrikes in the Hay El Sellom neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon, following the announcement of a ceasefire, on Sunday, April 19, 2026. (Diego Ibarra Sánchez/The New York Times)

By TYLER PAGER, SHIRIN HAKIM and SANAM MAHOOZI

Just days before a two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was set to expire, President Donald Trump and Iranian officials disagreed Sunday over whether top officials would meet this week in Pakistan for a second round of negotiations to end the war.

Hours after Trump said U.S. officials would attend talks in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, Iranian state media said Iran had not yet agreed to any such meeting. The stakes for such talks, should they happen, are high: Failure would risk reigniting the fighting and global economic upheaval.

A White House official said Vice President JD Vance was expected to lead a U.S. delegation, accompanied by top Trump aides Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The negotiations would be the second meeting of high-level officials since the ceasefire went into effect April 8.

The conflicting accounts about the state of the negotiations came as the economically vital Strait of Hormuz remained all but closed, a move Trump characterized in a social media post Sunday as a “total violation of our ceasefire.”

Iran said it had effectively closed the strait, a waterway crucial to the transit of global energy supplies, in defiance of one of Trump’s conditions for the temporary truce between the United States, Israel and Iran.

Trump’s announcement of U.S. participation in the talks came with a renewed threat to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure if the strait is not reopened and an extension of the ceasefire is not reached.

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL,” Trump wrote on social media. “I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran.”

The last round of negotiations, led last weekend by Vance in Islamabad, ended without a breakthrough. The meeting had been the highest-level encounter between Iranian and U.S. leaders in decades.

In recent days, Trump had repeatedly said Iran had assented to nearly all of his demands on the country’s nuclear program. Iranian leaders vehemently denied that claim, dampening hopes for an immediate agreement.

Here’s what else we are covering:

— Strait of Hormuz: Iranian forces were maintaining their tight grip on the strait, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil normally travels. Iran declared the strait open to commercial ships Friday, as long as they followed a designated route. But less than a day later Iranian officials said the strait would stay closed in retaliation for Trump’s blockade of Iran’s ports. Even if the strait opened fully, it would take weeks for oil and gas prices to recover.

— Pakistan: Pakistan appeared to be readying for a fresh round of talks between the United States and Iran, an indication that the talks were likely to go forward even as the two sides sent conflicting public messages. Islamabad went on a security lockdown Sunday night and officials said they would deploy 10,000 extra security forces in the city.

— Lebanon: Thousands of displaced Lebanese families were making their way back home to Lebanon’s south on Sunday soon after a 10-day ceasefire went into effect. The head of Hezbollah, Naim Kassem, said this weekend that the group was willing to cooperate with the Lebanese authorities to end the war with Israel and laid out a series of conditions for a lasting truce.