Iran Balking at New Talks With US Suspecting a Possible ‘Surprise Attack’: Axios

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

Iranian leaders are worried the United States is using a planned second summit in Pakistan as “cover” to launch a “surprise attack” on the country, Axios reported on Sunday.

The report comes as President Donald Trump prepares to send Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner back to Islamabad for the second time in the last two weeks to try and hammer out a deal with Iran’s theocratic regime to end the war.

Their trip comes after the trio failed to reach a deal with Iran during a marathon negotiating session last week in Iran; Vance said the Iranians refused to agree to the main point the Americans were seeking — an “affirmative commitment” the country will not pursue nuclear weapons.

Who the U.S. delegation will meet with remains a question mark, though. Iran’s leaders on Sunday said they are not sending a negotiating team to Pakistan, according to state media outlets Tasnim and IRNA.

Reuters chief national security reporter Phil Stewart reported Iran’s leaders said via state media their absence is to due “what it called Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire.”

The two-week ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Iran is set to expire on Wednesday, April 22. Trump had previously warned Iran he would blow up the country’s power plants and bridges if it did not cut a deal to end the war before the ceasefire was agreed to; the president told Fox News on Sunday he is ready to follow through on that threat if Iranian leaders don’t make a deal in the coming days.

“During our conversation today I got the sense he is very serious about targeting Iranian infrastructure if they do not make a good faith deal,” Fox’s Trey Yingst reported. “This is largely seen as the last diplomatic attempt.”

Yingst reported Trump is looking for an “all or nothing” deal that includes Iran giving up its enriched uranium, guaranteeing the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and an end to funding for terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

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