US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to reassure Gulf allies on Wednesday that Washington's landmark agreement with Iran would not come at the expense of their security, as he met leaders in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait during a regional tour aimed at easing concerns over the deal.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he had informed his representatives not to rush into a deal with Iran dashing earlier hopes that an agreement was imminent.
Pakistan has conveyed to the United States a revised Iranian proposal aimed at ending the Middle East conflict, a Pakistani source told Reuters on Monday, after US President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s earlier plan as unacceptable.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday rejected Iran’s response to a US peace proposal as “totally unacceptable,” dealing a fresh blow to efforts to end the conflict and raising the risk of renewed instability in the Gulf, where shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted.
Confusion over the scope of the newly announced US-Iran ceasefire and Israel's military campaign in Lebanon continued to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with industry operators adopting a cautious wait-and-see approach.
All eyes are on Pakistan's capital Islamabad as it hosts what are being described as “make-or-break” talks between the United States and Iran on Saturday, even as doubts persist over their prospects amid sharply divergent positions, ongoing violence in Lebanon, and renewed warnings from Donald Trump of intensified military action if diplomacy fails.
