13/04/2026

MONDAY | APR 13, 2026

9

US-Iran peace talks end

Russia, Ukraine report truce violations KYIV: Russia and Ukraine accused each other yesterday of breaching the 32-hour ceasefire in their four year war, reporting more than a thousand drone and shelling attacks just hours after the truce began on Saturday to mark Orthodox Easter. The Russian Defence Ministry said it recorded 1,971 ceasefire violations, while Ukraine’s general staff reported 479 shelling attacks and more than 1,700 drone strikes by Russian troops. According to the calendar of the Orthodox faith dominant in both countries, Easter was celebrated this year yesterday. Russia said a child was among civilians injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on the Kursk region, while the Belgorod region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported two people killed by Ukrainian shelling. Ukraine’s State Emergencies Service said two civilians were wounded yesterday by a Russian drone attack in Kharkiv region. Reuters could not independently verify reports of military activity. President Vladimir Putin announced the temporary Orthodox Easter ceasefire on Thursday and it was set to end at midnight yesterday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose previous ceasefire proposals were turned down by Moscow, agreed to the truce. – Reuters Peruvians vote for new president LIMA: Peruvians voted yesterday for a new president and members of Congress, casting ballots in a first round field of more than 30 presidential candidates after years of political turmoil that have eroded confidence in institutions and left voters deeply disillusioned. With no clear frontrunner and all major candidates polling well below the 50% needed to win outright, a June 7 runoff appears likely. That could prolong uncertainty in the world’s third largest copper producer at a time of rising crime and intensifying competition for influence between the United States and China. About 27 million people were eligible to vote. In Lima, fruit seller Gloria Padilla said she was still undecided. “Peru is a mess, and there’s no candidate worth voting for,” she said. Since 2018, Peru has cycled through eight presidents, fuelling scepticism that any new administration will last a full five year term following a dizzying turnover driven by impeachments, corruption scandals and weak governing coalitions that have paralysed decision-making. “People despise the current Congress,” said Martin Cassinelli at the Atlantic Council. “They recognise them as responsible for the political chaos we’ve had over the last 10 years.” – Reuters

o No agreement reached to end war

ISLAMABAD: The US and Iran failed to reach an agreement to end their war despite marathon talks that concluded yesterday in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, jeopardising a fragile ceasefire. Each side blamed the other for the failure of the 21-hour negotiations to end fighting that has killed thousands and sent oil prices soaring since it began over six weeks ago. “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” Vice-President JD Vance, the head of the US delegation, told reporters shortly before he left Islamabad. “So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are.” Vance said Iran had chosen not to accept American terms, including not to build nuclear weapons. “We need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the president

of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.” The talks in Islamabad, after a ceasefire earlier in the week, were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said that “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching an agreement. Other Iranian media said there was agreement on a number of issues but that the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear programme were the main points of difference. A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the talks were conducted in an atmosphere of mistrust. “It is natural that we shouldn’t have expected to reach agreement in just one session,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said it was “imperative” to maintain the two-week ceasefire that was agreed on Tuesday as the two sides attempted to wind down a war that began on Feb 28 with airstrikes by the US and Israel on Iran.

A pedestrian walking past a giant billboard reading ‘The Strait of Hormuz remains closed’ at the Revolution Square in Tehran yesterday. – AFPPIC

on Saturday that a deal was not entirely necessary. “We’re negotiating. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me, because we’ve won,” he told reporters. The US delegation included special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Iran’s team included Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi. – Reuters

Israeli Security Cabinet Minister Zeev Elkin told Army Radio that more talks were still an option, but warned: “The Iranians are playing with fire.” Vance did not mention reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for about 20% of global energy supplies that Tehran has blocked since the war began. Vance said he had spoken with Trump as many as a dozen times during the talks. But even as the negotiations continued, Trump said

Vance shaking hands with Dar, accompanied by (from left) Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, Pakistan Chief of Defence Forces Chief of Army Staff Field Marshall Asim Munir and Charge d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Islamabad Natalie A. Baker. – AFPPIC

Failure blamed on US push to ‘dictate’ terms TEHRAN: Iran’s former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who led his country’s delegation at 2015 nuclear talks, yesterday blamed the failure of negotiations to end the Middle East war on US attempts to “dictate” its terms. President Donald Trump. “The US must learn: you can’t dictate terms to Iran. It’s not too late to learn. Yet,” said Zarif in a post on X. US news website Axios quoted an unnamed source briefed on the negotiations as saying that disagreements included “Iran’s agreed on some points but that “differences remained on two or three important issues”. The Wall Street Journal reported two US warships passed through the Strait of Hormuz, the first such transit since the war with Iran began.

Tehran, US media outlet Axios said. “We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, calling it “a favour” to countries such as China, Japan and France that “don’t have the courage or will to do this work themselves”. He acknowledged that mines still pose a threat. “The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may ‘bunk’ into one of their sea mines,”Trump wrote. – AFP

The US Navy guided-missile destroyers passed through the strait with no issues reported, it said, citing three US officials. The operation was not coordinated with authorities in

“No negotiations – at least with Iran – will succeed based on ‘our/your‘ terms,” said Zarif, one of the architects of the nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers, which was abandoned in 2018 by US

demand to control the Strait of Hormuz and refusal to give up on its enriched uranium stockpile”. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the two sides had