FROM PAGE 1

On Thursday, Trump blasted Iran for doing a “very poor job” of letting oil through the strait. He also warned Tehran against trying to collect fees from ships crossing it. “That is not the agreement we have!”

Trump, in an interview with the New York Post yesterday, said that US warships are being reloaded with weaponry to strike Iran if talks in Pakistan fail to produce a deal.

“We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made -- even better than what we did previously, and we blew them apart,” the Post quoted Trump as saying.

“And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively.”

While Iran and Pakistan stated that the ceasefire included Lebanon, the US and Israel have since insisted that it is a separate issue.

Israeli forces launched the biggest attack of the war hours after the ceasefire was announced, killing more than 250 Lebanese in surprise strikes on heavily populated areas. Strikes across southern Lebanon yesterday killed more than a dozen people, Lebanon’s state media said.

Meanwhile, air raid alerts sounded across Israel, including in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv and the southern coastal city of Ashdod, after rocket fire from Lebanon. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

In a shift on Thursday, Israel said it would open separate talks with the Lebanese government aimed at ending the war there and disarming Hezbollah. A US State Department official confirmed the US would host an Israeli-Lebanese meeting next week.

Amid the gloom, a Pakistani source said “everything is on track” for the US-Iran peace talks to start today as planned.

Advance teams from both countries were already in place in the five-star Serena hotel in central Islamabad, where both delegations would stay for the duration of the talks. There were no face-to-face meetings planned for Friday, but Pakistan was relaying messages between them, the source said.

According to the Wall Street Journal, an Iranian delegation, led by Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and parliament Speaker, Ghalibaf, arrived in Islamabad late Thursday.

The centre of Islamabad was placed under complete lockdown for a hastily announced public holiday, with a security perimeter thrown up for a 3-km (2-mile) “red zone” around the hotel.

Although Trump has declared victory, the war did not achieve the aims he set out at the start: to deprive Iran of the ability to strike its neighbours, dismantle its nuclear programme and make it easier for its people to overthrow their government.

Iran still possesses missiles and drones capable of hitting its neighbours and a stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of uranium enriched near the level needed to make a bomb. Its clerical rulers, who faced a popular uprising just months ago, withstood the onslaught with no sign of organised opposition.

Iran’s agenda at the talks now includes demands for major new concessions, including the end of sanctions that crippled its economy for years, and acknowledgement of its authority over the strait, where it aims to collect transit fees and control access in what would amount to a huge shift in regional power.

Its new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, yet to be seen in public since taking over from his father, released a defiant statement on Thursday saying Iran would demand compensation for all wartime damage.

“We will certainly not leave unpunished the criminal aggressors who attacked our country,” he said.

The United States, for its part, wants Iran to relinquish the uranium, forgo further enrichment, give up its missiles and end support for regional allies - years-old demands left over from talks Trump abandoned two days before launching the war.

Pakistani officials remained tight-lipped about the arrangements for the negotiations, citing security and diplomatic concerns, but said the preparations were full steam ahead.

Apart from the foreign minister and Speaker, senior figures from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard are also expected to attend the talks.

Officials said that delegations from Gulf countries, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which have faced heavy bombardment from Iran since the war began, would also be travelling to Islamabad and may take part in sideline talks.