Iran stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire in the war with the US and Israel, two semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported Tuesday, but President Donald Trump disputed the claim and said talks were continuing.
The reports by the Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, came as tensions flared in Israel’s separate but related fight against the Iranian-backed militia Hizbollah in Lebanon.
A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told the media that Iran had not communicated at all on Tuesday after saying that a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.
In other developments, the US military said it fired a missile to halt another oil tanker trying to reach an Iranian port in violation of the American blockade. It was the seventh ship stopped by the military while trying to run the blockade, U.S. Central Command said in a social media post.
The Botswana-flagged merchant vessel M/T Lexie was stopped by an aircraft firing a Hellfire missile into its engine room after the crew ignored repeated warnings over 24 hours, the post said.
Trump called reports of a cessation in talks "false and erroneous.”
"The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post. "Where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not address the reported cutoff in communications as he testified at a congressional hearing in Washington. Instead, he sounded an optimistic note about the nuclear dimension of the negotiations, while cautioning that there’s no guarantee of reaching "a deal that’s acceptable.”
Iran has been trying to increase pressure on Trump over negotiations on the Iran war ceasefire and loosening the Islamic Republic's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and the oil, gas and other commodities that normally pass through it. Trump then could potentially push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt or slow the advance of his forces, which have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter of a century.
The conflicts have increasingly become conjoined, as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.
Associated Press