The next steps to resume U.S.-Iran talks remained unclear Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. was extending its ceasefire in the war at Pakistan's request while awaiting a "unified proposal" from Tehran.
Iran has not yet responded to Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension, and both countries have warned they were prepared to resume fighting if a deal isn’t reached.
Trump said Tuesday night in a social media post that “Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open” so they can sell their crude oil, after earlier saying that the U.S. military would maintain its blockade of Iranian ports.
Meanwhile, Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon traded some fire Tuesday, despite expected talks in Washington this week after a 10-day ceasefire went into effect last Friday.
Since the war started, fighting has killed at least 3,375 people in Iran and more than 2,290 in Lebanon. 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.
Here is the latest:
Pakistan focuses on keeping talks alive
Pakistan’s top political and military leadership has worked to prevent talks from collapsing and to persuade the U.S. to extend the ceasefire over the past 24 hours, officials said Wednesday.
Two Pakistani officials told The Associated Press that authorities will keep security arrangements in place in Islamabad in case U.S. and Iranian delegations ultimately arrive.
Pakistan is also still waiting to hear from Tehran on when it will send a delegation for a second round, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
In Islamabad, police and troops remained on alert along key roads, manning checkpoints.
Residents were forced to take longer routes as authorities restricted access to parts of the city.
“We have not received any instructions to remove these barricades,” said police officer Mohammad Aslam as he directed commuters to turn back and use alternative routes.
— By Munir Ahmed
Pakistan’s top diplomat meets British high commissioner in Islamabad
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met British High Commissioner Jane Marriott on Wednesday in the capital, Islamabad, to discuss the evolving regional situation.
According to the Foreign Ministry, Dar underscored Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to facilitate diplomatic engagement and stressed the importance of dialogue and diplomacy in the peaceful resolution of disputes.
Marriott appreciated Pakistan’s facilitative role in bringing the United States and Iran to the negotiating table, the ministry said.
Second ship comes under attack in Strait of Hormuz
A second ship came under attack Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, the British military said, just a short time after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard opened fire on a container ship.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center did not immediately identify who shot at the second ship.
However, suspicion immediately fell on Iran, whose paramilitary Revolutionary Guard earlier opened fire on the container ship.
In the second attack, the cargo ship said it had been fired upon and was stopped in the water.
It said there was no reported damage to the vessel.
The attacks come days after the U.S. seized an Iranian container ship after shooting it this past weekend, and boarded an oil tanker associated with Iran’s oil trade Tuesday in the Indian Ocean.
Iranian missile rallies seen across country
Hard-line supporters of Iran’s government held rallies across the country late Tuesday that included the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard bringing missiles and their launchers into public places for the first time since the ceasefire in the war with Israel and the United States.
The scale of the demonstrations served as a sign of defiance to Israel and the U.S., which devoted a lot of their airstrike campaign to decimating Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal.
Iranian state media showed pictures, videos and wrote about missile demonstrations in Ahvaz, Arak, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Kerman, Tabriz, Tehran, Qom and Zanjan.
The missiles included the Faheh, the Kheibar Shekan, the Khorramshahr-4 and the Qadr.
Some of those include the cluster munitions used repeatedly against Israel during the war as a means to get around the country’s air defenses.
Drone strike on eastern Lebanon kills 1
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the drone strike on the village of Jabbour early Wednesday also wounded two people.
The Israeli military denied that it had struck in that area.
Since a 10-day ceasefire went into effect Friday, there have been several Israeli strikes while Hezbollah claimed its first attack Tuesday.
Military planners meet on Hormuz mission
Britain and France are gathering military planners from about 30 countries to flesh out details of a mission to provide security in the Strait of Hormuz — if and when the key shipping route reopens.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said the two-day meeting at a U.K. command-and-control center in London aims to “turn diplomatic consensus into a detailed military plan.”
The plan is for an international mission to protect merchant vessels, clear mines and provide reassurance, and is dependent on a “sustainable” ceasefire being reached in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Countries, including France and the U.K., have pledged to send ships and mine-clearing drones.
Despite skepticism that the plan will ever be put into action, British Defense Secretary John Healey said Wednesday he is “confident that, over the next two days, real progress can be made.”
Iran hangs another man over alleged ties to Mossad
Iran hanged another man Wednesday over alleged ties to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency as Tehran continues a series of executions during the war, and after nationwide protests in January.
The Mizan news agency of Iran’s judiciary announced the execution of Mehdi Farid.
It described Farid as working for a “sensitive state organization” and passing information to the Israeli spy agency.
It said Farid was convicted in Iran’s Qom province.
Human rights activists have long said Iran convicts people in closed-door trials without allowing defendants to properly defend themselves.
There have been multiple executions of alleged spies recently, as well as protesters and those affiliated with an Iranian exiled opposition group.
Container ship in strait ‘ignored the warnings’ before attack, Iranian website says
Nour News, a website long affiliated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the Guard opened fire on the container ship after it had “ignored the warnings of the Iranian armed forces.”
Nour News added the ship sustained “extensive damage” in the attack.
Although the U.S. focused much of its fire in the war on Iran’s navy, sinking and heavily damaging dozens of vessels, the Guard operates a fleet of small attack boats, some of which apparently survived the war.
Those vessels typically carry mounted machine guns, and can be used for mining operations.
The Guard earlier Wednesday had vowed to “deliver crushing blows beyond the enemy’s imagination to its remaining assets in the region.”
The Guard “remains at peak readiness and determination to continue the fight, prepared for a decisive, certain and immediate response to any threat or renewed aggression,” the statement added.
Iran’s Revolution
ary Guard opens fire on ship in Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard opened fire Wednesday on a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, damaging the ship and further raising the stakes as planned ceasefire talks in Pakistan failed to materialize.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the attack happened around 7:55 a.m. in the strait and targeted a container ship.
The UKMTO said a Guard gunboat did not hail the ship before firing.
It said no one was hurt and there was no environmental impact from the attack.
Iran’s semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, believed to be close to the Guard, both reported on the attack, citing the UKMTO.
Fars went further to describe Iran as “lawfully enforcing” its control over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of the world’s crude oil and natural gas traded once passed.
However, the strait had been considered an international waterway for the world’s shippers despite being in the territorial waters of both Iran and Oman.
The attack comes after the U.S. military seized an Iranian container ship after shooting it this past weekend, and after it boarded an oil tanker associated with Iran’s oil trade in the Indian Ocean.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
