US President Donald Trump vowed Friday to have the Strait of Hormuz open “with or without”ย Iranโs cooperation, fairly soon, and said his top priority in peace talks was to ensure Tehran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The remarks come just hours before the delegations of the two nations meet in Pakistan to finalise their ceasefire agreement.
Trump has dispatched Vice President JD Vance to Pakistan to meet senior Iranian officials in a bid to secure a peace deal following a two-week ceasefire agreed on Tuesday.
“We’re going to open up the Gulf with or without them…or the strait, as they call it. I think it’s going to go pretty quickly, and if it doesn’t, we’ll be able to finish it off,” Trump told reporters as he departed Washington for a domestic trip.
“We will have that open fairly soon.”
When asked what would define a successful agreement, Trump said, “No nuclear weapon. That’s 99 per cent of it.”
Trump sent Vice President JD Vance to Islamabad on Friday to meet senior Iranian officials, in what the White House described as an effort to negotiate a lasting peace deal. The talks follow a two week ceasefire announced by Trump on Tuesday, a fragile pause in a conflict that began when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28. Iran responded with attacks on Israel and American military bases across the Gulf states.
When asked what a satisfactory peace deal would require, Trump said bluntly, “No nuclear weapon. Thatโs 99 per cent of it.”
The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, handles roughly one-fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas shipments. Tehranโs blockade of the strait since the conflict began has driven up oil prices and unsettled financial markets worldwide. Despite the ceasefire, shipping through the strait remains at a standstill.
US-Iran ceasefire talks
An Iranian delegation arrived in Islamabad in the early hours of Saturday for talks with the United States, as global attention remains fixed on efforts to end the conflict between the two sides.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while announcing a two-week ceasefire on Wednesday, said the US and Iran would hold talks in Islamabad, tagging the presidents of both countries in his statement on X.
The Iranian delegation, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and accompanied by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, is set to take part in the Islamabad talks beginning later on Saturday, following the arrival of the US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance, which is currently en route to the city.
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