Top Iran official heads to Pakistan for talks as U.S. waits for ‘good deal’ – National

Iran’s top diplomat was heading Friday to Pakistan, where officials have been trying to get the United States and Iran to convene for a second round of ceasefire negotiations.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X that he was on his way to Pakistan, Oman and Russia on a trip focused on “bilateral matters and regional developments.”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about Araghchi’s trip to Pakistan and whether a U.S. delegation would also travel there.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking around the same time the news emerged, told a briefing that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal” with the United States.

The trip comes as much of the world has been on edge over a war that has snarled crucial energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz, clouded the global economic picture, and left thousands dead across the Middle East.

Earlier, two Pakistani officials told The Associated Press that Araghchi was heading to Pakistan with a small government delegation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Islamabad has sought to reinject momentum into the negotiations between Iran and the United States, which had been set to resume this week but did not materialize.

2:00
Iran attacks 3 ships in Strait of Hormuz amid ceasefire

Separately Friday, the White House said President Donald Trump issued a 90-day extension to the Jones Act waiver, making it easier for non-American vessels to transport oil and natural gas in the wake of the war.

Trump first announced a 60-day waiver in mid-March, a move seen as helping to stabilize energy prices and making it easier for more ships to travel to the U.S. following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The post on social media by a White House press aide said: “New data compiled since the initial waiver was issued revealed that significantly more supply was able to reach U.S. ports faster.”

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The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, retreated on the news, falling to around $104 a barrel. Earlier it had edged up to more than $107, a level nearly 50% higher than where it was on Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran to start the war.

1:52
Air travel facing fuel crisis as Iran war squeezes supply

Pakistan has been trying to get U.S. and Iranian officials back to the table after Trump this week announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire with Iran, honoring Islamabad’s request for more time for diplomatic outreach.

That hasn’t lowered tensions in the strait the strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas is shipped during peacetime.

Iran has kept its stranglehold on traffic through the strait, attacking three ships earlier this week, while the U.S. has maintained its blockade of Iranian ports and ordered the military to “shoot and kill” small boats that could be placing mines.

“Iran has an important choice, a chance to make a deal, a good deal, a wise deal,” Hegseth told reporters on Friday. He said a second U.S. aircraft carrier will join the blockade in a few days.

Hegseth added the U.S. was “not anxious” for a deal with Iran, and repeated Trump’s previous comments of having “all the time in the world.”

“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely … at the negotiating table. All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways,” he said.

Washington now has three aircraft carriers in the region after the USS George H.W. Bush arrived in the Indian Ocean this week. The USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea and the USS Gerald R. Ford is in the Red Sea.

It is the first time since 2003 that three American carriers have been operating in the region simultaneously. The force includes 200 aircraft and 15,000 sailors and Marines, U.S. Central Command said.

2:06
Trump extends U.S. ceasefire with Iran indefinitely

Since the war began, at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran, and over 2,290 people have been killed in Lebanon, where new fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah broke out two days after the war started, according to authorities.

Additionally, 23 people have died in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 U.S. service members throughout the region have been killed.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon has also sustained casualties in the context of the latest Israel-Hezbollah fighting.

UNIFIL said Friday that an Indonesian peacekeeper died of wounds sustained in an attack on his base on March 29, raising to six – four Indonesians and two French – the number of force members killed since the war erupted.

1:40
Best-case scenario for energy markets ‘is pretty bad,’ EU energy commissioner says amid war in Iran

The situation in Lebanon remained tense a day after Trump announced Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah by three weeks.

Hezbollah has not been a participant in the diplomacy brokered by Washington between the two governments.

The Israeli army asked residents of the southern Lebanese village of Deir Aames to evacuate, saying Hezbollah was using the village to launch attacks against Israel.

Israel’s military said it downed a drone over Lebanon following the launch of a small surface-to-air missile by Hezbollah. The militant group, meanwhile, said it shot down an Israeli drone with a surface-to-air missile over the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Rising from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Josh Boak in Washington, Bassem Mroue in Beirut, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

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