President Donald Trump cancelled a planned trip to Pakistan by his senior envoys for negotiations over the Iran conflict, raising questions about the durability of the current ceasefire.
On Saturday, Mr Trump 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 travelling".
“Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’ Nobody knows who is in charge, including them,” Mr Trump wrote, referring to Iran. “If they want to talk, all they have to do is call.”
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met mediators in Pakistan but left Islamabad before the anticipated arrival of US envoys.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a social media post that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other senior leaders met with Mr Araghchi for about two hours. The state-run Irna news agency reported on Saturday that Mr Araghchi left the city after those talks.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had said earlier that the Iranians originally asked the US to arrange the latest round of talks. But Mr Araghchi had said the purpose of his travel was to consult with partners on bilateral matters and his office declined to characterise the meetings as mediation by Pakistan.
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 killed more than 5,000 people, mostly in Iran.
Mr 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.
Energy traders had been closely tracking signals on whether peace talks would again take place and offer some relief. On Friday, the price of West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark crude, fell by 1.5 per cent after the White House had said it was sending Mr Kushner and Mr Witkoff to Pakistan.
Conflicting messaging from both sides means that WTI futures were still up 13 per cent last week, the largest jump since the initial surge triggered by the war in early March.
The war in Iran is recognised as the biggest supply shock in the history of the global oil market by the International Energy Agency, as the choking of the Strait of Hormuz disrupts a fifth of daily 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 has dropped by at least 10 percent.
