WASHINGTON
\nPresident Donald Trump issued a fresh warning to Iran on Sunday, saying it had to move quickly towards a peace deal or \u201cthere won\u2019t be anything left of them.\u201d Washington, locked in conflict with Tehran since US and Israeli forces launched major strikes on the Islamic republic beginning February 28, has struggled to break an impasse and make any progress toward ending a war that has shaken the Middle East and sent energy prices climbing.
\n\u201cFor Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won\u2019t be anything left of them,\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. \u201cTIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!\u201dThe war has led to an effective blockade of the critical Strait of Hormuz, through which some 20% of global oil exports pass in peacetime, and has drawn neighbours Israel and Lebanon into a deadly side conflict.
\nIran\u2019s clerical state, Hezbollah\u2019s patron, has demanded a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon before any broader peace agreement with Trump, who has been frustrated by Tehran\u2019s refusal to accept a deal on his terms. An Israeli military official said Sunday that Hezbollah had fired around 200 projectiles at Israel and its troops over the weekend, despite Israel and Lebanon agreeing to extend a ceasefire.
\nLebanon\u2019s health ministry said new Israeli strikes Sunday on the country\u2019s south killed five people, including two children. Israeli attacks since the start of the war have killed more than 2,900 people in Lebanon, including 400 since the truce began on April 17, according to Lebanese authorities.
\nWashington and Tehran agreed to a truce on April 8, but peace negotiations have stalled and sporadic attacks have continued. The Fars news agency said Washington had presented a five-point list which included a demand for Iran to keep only one nuclear site in operation and transfer its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the United States. Washington also refused to release \u201ceven 25%\u201d of Iran\u2019s frozen assets abroad or pay any reparations for the damage inflicted on Iran during the war, according to Fars.
\nThe Mehr news agency, meanwhile, said: \u201cThe United States, offering no tangible concessions, wants to obtain concessions that it failed to obtain during the war, which will lead to an impasse in the negotiations.\u201d Sunday saw more unrest in parts of the region. A drone strike triggered a fire near a nuclear power station in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, authorities said, reporting no injuries or impact on radiation levels.
\nIranian-backed armed groups equipped with drones are based in Iraq, while Tehran\u2019s allies in Yemen \u2014 the Houthi rebels \u2014 also possess combat-grade UAVs. Pakistan has been actively mediating in the peace talks between Iran and the United States, and its Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met Sunday in Tehran with Iran\u2019s chief negotiator and speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
\nIn a social media post following the talks, Ghalibaf said the US and Israeli war with Iran had destabilised the entire Middle East. \u201cSome governments in the region believed that the presence of the United States would bring them security, but recent events showed that this presence is not only incapable of providing security, but also creates the grounds for insecurity,\u201d he said.
\nTrump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping discussed Iran during their high-stakes summit earlier this week, but there appeared to be little headway on Iran. Trump said Xi assured him that China was not preparing military aid to Iran, while the Chinese foreign ministry said Friday in a statement on Iran that \u201cshipping lanes should be reopened as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump issued a fresh warning to Iran on Sunday, saying it had to move quickly towards a peace deal or \u201cthere won\u2019t be anything left of them.\u201d Washington, locked in conflict with Tehran since US and Israeli forces launched major strikes on the Islamic republic beginning February 28, has struggled to break …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97960,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97950\/revisions\/97960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}