Iran war live: Araghchi to meet Putin; Trump says Tehran can call for talks

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose more than 2 percent on Sunday after hopes for a second round of ceasefire negotiations between Washington and Tehran unravelled over the weekend.

Brent stood at $107.35 as of 00:30 GMT, up 47 percent compared with before the start of the war.

Despite the diplomatic impasse, major Asian stock markets opened higher as investors shrugged off the uncertainty hanging over the fragile truce in the war.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained about 0.4 percent in morning trading, while South Korea’s KOSPI was up about 1.5 percent.

According to one diplomatic source, recent events have served as a catalyst, [reinforcing the view] that there needs to be a permanent end to hostilities.

We are being told here in Islamabad that we are inching towards a framework of sorts, which will provide a background to which all of these sides can come to an agreement – and not just the Iranians and the Americans, but essentially the Gulf countries as well.

We’ve been hearing from various Gulf capitals that the situation warrants them being included in whatever settlement emerges. They don’t want a repeat of what happened in 2015 under the JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed between Iran and world powers], where they felt they were left out.

So it appears that all of this is being built towards a deal.

The Pakistanis are still hopeful that there will be a second round of talks, and the details are still not clear, but the diplomacy is happening.

The levers are being pulled, the wheels are turning, and we’re still getting hopeful signs from the Pakistanis that they will be able to mediate between the US and Iran so that there is a permanent end to this conflict that is acceptable to all sides.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organisations in Vienna, says the US must abandon “blackmailing” and “ultimatums” in its negotiating position if talks with Iran are to move forward.

“The #US is accustomed to conduct negotiations from the position of strength, threatening to use military force or tighten #sanctions. It is obvious that this scheme doesn’t work with #Iran,” he wrote on X.

“The best way ahead for the US under the current circumstances is to drop all those elements of its position which look like #blackmailing, #ultimatums and #deadlines.”

Diplomacy is not dead. It is a process that is going to take its time and involve all actors.

That is the message coming from Islamabad, where Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi made a quick stop to brief the Pakistani leadership, which has played a pivotal role in bringing both sides together, before departing for Russia for further meetings.

There’s been a flurry of diplomatic activity in the last 24 to 48 hours, and not just from Trump, who called off the visit by his envoys to Pakistan, but also from the Iranians.

Araghchi, right after those long consultations with the Pakistanis, went to Oman, where he met the sultan and his Omani counterpart. Then there was a flurry of phone calls.

The Iranians have also spoken to the Qataris, the Saudis, the Egyptians, as well as the French, and we believe there has been some communication with the Russians as well, and that [Russia] is where Araghchi is headed to next.

Central Command (CENTCOM) says that US forces are continuing to enforce a blockade against Iranian ports, preventing ships from entering or exiting Iranian waters.

“American forces have directed 38 ships to turn around or return to port,” CENTCOM said on X.

Araghchi visits are the most important engagements by Iranian officials in the past 24 hours, [which] appear to be part of a wider diplomatic initiative that Iranians are pursuing in the region, starting from Islamabad to Muscat and then to Islamabad again.

After these stops, Araghchi will visit Russia. The wider message here is that Iran is focusing on consolidating their presence here in the region and their coordination between the regional partners.

A key focus of the visits is also the Strait of Hormuz, with Iranians continuing to reject the naval blockade by the United States Navy. They are trying to say that we are present here and are controlling [this strait], and we need to negotiate to find a way to safely run it, as Araghchi said in his post just a while ago.

Russia has been a strategic ally for the Iranians for decades, and they’re trying to get political backing from them. Araghchi is expected to visit Russia on Monday, and he is expected to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin.

The message is clear: we are engaging in a regional and active diplomacy, but at the same time, we are sharing our perspectives and our positions with our regional partners to coordinate and to create a good environment before any direct or indirect talks in the upcoming days.

The conflict in the Middle East is hurting Iran’s already fragile economy.

Tehran entered this war after decades of international sanctions and political isolation. Attacks on Iran’s critical facilities have hurt industries, and a US blockade of its maritime trade has pushed the economy to its brink.

Watch our video report below:

• Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi heads to Moscow and St Petersburg for talks with Russian officials and President Vladimir Putin as Tehran steps up diplomatic efforts to end the war with the US.
• Araghchi, who visited Oman earlier on Sunday, says talks in Muscat focused on “ways to ensure safe transit that is to benefit of all dear neighbors” in the Strait of Hormuz.
• US President Donald Trump says Iranian leaders “can come to us or they can call us” if they want to resume talks, a day after cancelling a planned visit by his envoys to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, for negotiations.
• Israeli forces continue to bombard southern Lebanon despite a US-brokered “ceasefire”, forcing thousands to flee their homes again and killing at least 14 people, including two children, on Sunday.
• Hezbollah claims several attacks on Israeli troops, saying the assaults were “a legitimate response to [Israel’s] persistent violations of the ceasefire since the first day of the temporary truce declaration”.
• The US-Iran standoff in the Strait of Hormuz continues, with senior Iranian lawmaker Ali Nikzad saying Tehran will not allow a return to pre-war conditions in the strategic waterway.

Hello, and welcome to our coverage of the ceasefire in the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

Stay with us for the latest developments, reactions and analysis from across the Middle East and beyond.

You can find our updates from Sunday, April 26, here.