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(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump canceled a planned trip to Pakistan by his top envoys for negotiations over the Iran conflict, raising questions about the durability of the current ceasefire.
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The president on Saturday told his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff to skip the trip, adding in a social media post that there has been “Too much time wasted on traveling.”
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“Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’ Nobody knows who is in charge, including them,” Trump wrote. “If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”
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Earlier Saturday, Iran’s top diplomat met mediators in Pakistan but left Islamabad ahead of the planned arrival of US envoys.
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Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called his visit to Pakistan “very fruitful” but added in a social media post that Iran has “yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy.”
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Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a social media post that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other senior leaders met with Araghchi for about two hours. The state-run IRNA news agency reported Saturday that Araghchi left the city after those talks.
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had said earlier that the Iranians originally reached out to the US to arrange the fresh round of talks. But Araghchi had said the purpose of his travel was to consult with partners on bilateral matters and his office refrained from portraying the meetings as mediation by Pakistan.
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The US has been trying to increase pressure on Iran with a continued naval blockade aimed at forcing Tehran to agree to talks to bring to an end to the war that has already killed more than 5,000 people, mostly in Iran.
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Trump ordered the US Navy to shoot any boat putting mines in the Strait of Hormuz, after the military intercepted two oil supertankers that tried to evade the blockade.
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Energy traders had been closely tracking signals on whether peace talks would again take place and offer some relief. On Friday, West Texas Intermediate fell 1.5% after the White House had said it was sending Kushner and Witkoff to Pakistan.
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Conflicting messaging from both sides means that WTI futures were still up 13% last week, the largest jump since the initial surge triggered by the war in early March.
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The war in Iran has been dubbed the biggest supply shock in the history of the global oil market by the International Energy Agency, as the choking off of Hormuz disrupts a fifth of global oil flows. As prices surge, traders are now bracing for a subsequent crash in demand as consumption recalibrates lower to align with supply that’s dropped at least 10%.
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—With assistance from Patrick Sykes, Millie Munshi, Sam Kim and Susanne Barton.
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(Updates with Araghchi’s post in fifth paragraph)
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English (US)