The most significant diplomatic channel seeking to end the two-month-old US-Iran war collapsed this weekend after President Donald Trump abruptly cancelled a planned mission by his senior envoys to Pakistan. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were due in Islamabad for face-to-face negotiations, but Trump declared the trip a waste of “too much time” and cited “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Tehran’s leadership. Hours later he told reporters Iran had submitted a new written proposal within ten minutes of his cancellation, describing it as “much better” yet still “not enough”. The sequence left mediators scrambling and the fate of the fragile ceasefire hanging on an increasingly fraught back-channel.

Viewed from Washington, the move signals a White House determined to dictate the pace and format of diplomacy. Trump insisted the Iranians “can come to us, or they can call us” and claimed the US held “all the cards”. That posture, however, met a frosty reception in Tehran, where President Masoud Pezeshkian retorted that his country would not enter “imposed negotiations under threats or blockade”. The blockade in question is mutual: US naval forces are interdicting Iranian-linked shipping, while Iran’s so-called mosquito fleet of gunboats has rendered the Strait of Hormuz virtually impassable for the first time in history. Daily transits of the waterway that normally carries a fifth of the world’s oil trade have fallen to near zero, driving energy prices to multi-year highs.

Against this backdrop, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi undertook a frantic diplomatic tour. He left Islamabad on Saturday after sharing Tehran’s framework for a durable ceasefire with Pakistani mediators, only to return on Sunday via Muscat, where he discussed maritime security with Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. Araghchi then proceeded to Moscow for consultations with President Vladimir Putin. Analysts in London note that Iran’s circuitous route through multiple regional capitals reveals a strategy of shoring up support among the Persian Gulf’s littoral states and Russia, while keeping the door to direct talks with Washington carefully ajar. Pakistan, which has hosted the mediation effort, described itself as engaged in “crisis management”, with its leaders striving to prevent a total breakdown.

From the Gulf emirates and Oman, the mediation is viewed with mounting alarm. The Strait of Hormuz crisis now threatens to reshape global oil logistics for months, and shipowners remain unconvinced that US mine-clearing operations can quickly restore confidence. Meanwhile, Israel has added pressure by ordering “forceful” strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, testing the limits of a three-week-old ceasefire on that front. Seen from Moscow, the turmoil offers both risk and opportunity: Russia gains leverage as Iran’s interlocutor, yet a wider conflagration would endanger its own regional equities.

Pakistani officials insist the mediation process has not died, though the withdrawal of US security equipment from Islamabad suggests that no American delegation will return soon. Tehran’s core demand – an end to the US-enforced port blockade before any new round of talks – remains the central sticking point. With both sides publicly dug in, the conflict enters a dangerous limbo phase. The longer the Strait of Hormuz stays shut, the greater the economic pain for import-dependent economies in Asia and Europe, and the harder it becomes for either leader to compromise without appearing to capitulate. For now, diplomacy survives only in the phone calls Trump insists are sufficient and in the shuttle of anxious mediators who know that each day of stalemate edges the region closer to a resumption of full-scale hostilities.