By Gursimran Mehar
April 8 (Reuters) – Pakistan, a mediator between the U.S. and Iran, on Wednesday requested that U.S. President Donald Trump grant a two-week ceasefire and extension to a deadline he imposed on Iran to end its blockade of Gulf oil, while U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran intensified during the sixth week of the war.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters Tehran is positively reviewing Pakistan’s request for a two-week ceasefire. The White House said Trump is aware of Pakistan’s proposal, saying a response will come.
“To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a post on X.
The war has killed thousands across the region and resulted in the worst-ever energy supply disruption due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the artery used to transit one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas.
Sharif’s comments come after Trump, in a social media post that shocked world leaders, said “a whole civilization will die tonight” if an agreement is not reached to end the conflict.
Trump has given Iran until 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) in Washington – 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday in Tehran – to end its blockade of Gulf oil or see the U.S. destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran.
Sharif urged “all warring parties” to observe a ceasefire for two weeks “to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war.”
He added that diplomatic efforts to settle the war peacefully were “progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future.”
During the early hours of Wednesday in Pakistan, close to Trump’s deadline, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar held conversations regarding the conflict in separate calls with his counterparts from Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, called Pakistan’s efforts to stop the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran a step forward from a critical, sensitive stage.
Sources told Reuters on Tuesday that talks between the U.S. and Iran were at risk of being derailed following Tehran’s attacks on Saudi Arabian industrial facilities.
Pakistan has been the main go-between for proposals shared by Iran and the United States, but there has been no sign of a compromise.
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Franklin Paul, Cynthia Osterman, Alistair Bell, Rod Nickel)
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