21/04/2026

TUESDAY | APR 21, 2026

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Iran not planning to attend talks

Tasnim news agency reported Tehran had sent drones in the direction of US military ships after it “attacked” and seized Touska. Iran had briefly reopened the strait on Friday in recognition of an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in Lebanon, but closed it again the following day in response to the United States maintaining its blockade. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei on Sunday said the blockade was “a violation” of the ceasefire and illegal collective punishment of the Iranian people. In spite of the uncertainty surrounding the talks in Pakistan, security was visibly stepped up in Islamabad on Sunday in anticipation of the negotiations. Authorities announced road closures and traffic restrictions across the city, as well as in neighboring Rawalpindi. A White House official said the delegation would be led by Vice-President JD Vance and include Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. – AFP

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable deal, and I hope they take it,” Trump said in a post on Sunday, while also renewing his threats against Iran’s infrastructure if a deal is not made. Trump has been under pressure to find an off-ramp since Tehran moved early in the war to choke off the Strait of Hormuz. Having failed to force it open again, Trump countered with a US naval blockade on Iranian ports in an attempt to cut off Tehran’s oil revenues. On Sunday, he announced that a massive Iranian-flagged cargo ship “tried to get past our naval blockade, and it did not go well for them”. A US destroyer warned the ship to stop and then forced it to by “by blowing a hole in the engineroom”, Trump said, adding: “Right now, US Marines have custody of the vessel.” Trump said the Iranian-flagged ship, Touska , is under US Treasury sanctions “because of prior history of illegal activity”.

to take part in the next round of Iran-US talks”. The Fars and Tasnim news agencies had earlier cited anonymous sources as saying “the overall atmosphere cannot be assessed as very positive”, adding that lifting the US blockade was a precondition for negotiations. State-run IRNA pointed to the blockade and Washington’s “unreasonable and unrealistic demands”, saying that “in these circumstances, there is no clear prospect of fruitful negotiations”. Iran and the United States, along with Israel, are just days away from the end of the two-week ceasefire that halted the Middle East war, ignited by US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb 28. There has so far been only a single, 21 hour negotiating session held in Islamabad on April 11 that ended inconclusively, though groundwork for fresh talks continued afterwards.

WASHINGTON: Iran is not planning to attend talks with the United States, state media said, after President Donald Trump ordered US negotiators to travel to Pakistan yesterday, just days before a ceasefire in the Middle East expires. The US blockade of Iranian ports has been a significant sticking point, an issue further complicated by an American destroyer on Sunday firing on and seizing an Iranian ship that tried to evade it. Tehran said it would retaliate with Tasnim news agency reporting that Iran had sent drones in the direction of US military ships after its vessel was seized. State broadcaster IRIB on Sunday cited Iranian sources as saying “there are no plans o Pakistan prepares for second round of negotiations TEL AVIV: Israel’s army said yesterday it had determined that an image circulating on social media showing one of its soldiers in south Lebanon hitting a statue of Jesus Christ is authentic. The image appears to show an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer to strike the head on a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen off a cross. The sculpture is located in the Christian village of Debl in south Lebanon, near the border with Israel, the local municipality said, but officials could not say whether it had been damaged. Israel’s army said it viewed the incident with “great severity”, adding that the “soldier’s conduct is wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops”. “Following the completion of an initial examination regarding a photograph published earlier today of an IDF soldier harming a Christian symbol, it was determined that the photograph depicts an IDF soldier operating in southern Lebanon,” the army said. Tel Aviv confirms soldier hit statue RUSSIA ARRESTS GERMAN WOMAN IN BOMB PLOT MOSCOW: Russia said yesterday it had arrested a German woman found with a homemade bomb in her backpack. The FSB security agency said the woman was found with an improvised explosive device in her bag in the Caucasus city of Pyatigorsk. The FSB said it had “prevented a terrorist attack against a law enforcement facility in Stavropo”. It said the device, which contained an explosive charge equivalent to 1.5kg of TNT, was supposed to be detonated remotely. Electronic jammers prevented the blast. A man from a Central Asian state was arrested near the targeted site. – AFP DUO EXECUTED FOR LINKS TO MOSSAD, PLANNING ATTACKS DUBAI: Iran executed two men convicted of cooperating with Israel’s Mossad intelligence service and planning attacks inside the country, the judiciary’s news outlet Mizan reported. It said the two, identified as Mohammad Masoum Shahi and Hamed Validi, were accused of belonging to a spy network and had received training abroad, including in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. They had been convicted on charges including “enmity against God” and cooperation with hostile groups, and their death sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court before being carried out, Mizan reported. – Reuters The incident is being investigated by the Northern Command and is being “addressed through the chain of command”, it said. The army said “appropriate measures will be taken against those involved”. It said it is working with the community to “restore the statue to its place”. – AFP

BR I E F S

Israeli settlers move an appliance into a house in Sa-Nur. – REUTERSPIC

Israel reopens illegal West Bank settlement SA-NUR: Israeli ministers on Sunday officially reopened Sa-Nur, a settlement in the occupied West Bank that was evacuated 20 years ago, marking the occasion with defiant declarations against Palestinian statehood and calls to resettle Gaza. settlers from the Gaza Strip. The policy promoted by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon was framed as a security measure intended to reduce Israel’s civilian and military footprint in densely populated Palestinian areas.

moved into the re-established settlement in recent days, adding that the new residents included Yossi Dagan, head of the northern West Bank Settlements Council. Dagan was among those evacuated from Sa-Nur in 2005. “For me, this is both a national and a personal closing of a circle,” Dagan said after cutting the ribbon at the ceremony. “No more uprootings, no more retreats. We have returned to stay.” Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and since then settlement expansion has been a policy under successive Israeli governments. But it has accelerated significantly under the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. More than 100 settlements have been approved since the government came to power in 2022, according to activists and authorities. – AFP

Several Cabinet members and lawmakers attended the ceremony near a cluster of white prefabricated homes arranged in rows on a hilltop. Excluding east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank in settlements that are illegal under international law, among some three million Palestinians. “On this exciting day, we celebrate a historic correction to the criminal expulsion from Northern Samaria,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, using the Israeli biblical term for part of the West Bank. Sa-Nur’s settlers were evicted in 2005 as part of Israel’s so-called disengagement policy that also saw the country withdraw troops and

Israel’s current government, considered one of the most right-wing in the country’s history, approved the reconstruction of all four northern West Bank settlements evacuated in 2005. Authorities have approved 126 housing units in Sa-Nur alone. “We are cancelling the shame of the disengagement, burying the idea of a Palestinian state and returning to the settlement of Sa-Nur,” Smotrich said. Smotrich, a far-right minister in the ruling coalition and a settler himself, also called for the resettlement of the Gaza Strip as a “security belt” for the State of Israel. Israeli media reported that 16 families had