Iran has brushed off US President Donald Trump’s extension of the Middle East ceasefire as “nothing”, as he launched a social media tirade.

“Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late on Tuesday (US time).

“They only say they want it closed because I have it totally BLOCKADED (CLOSED!), so they merely want to ‘save face’.

“People approached me four days ago, saying, ‘Sir, Iran wants to open up the Strait, immediately’.

“But if we do that there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!”

Trump said earlier on Tuesday the US had agreed to a request from Pakistani mediators to extended the two-week-old ceasefire in the Middle East to allow for further peace talks. He said the US blockade of Iran’s ports – which Tehran considers an act of war – would continue.

Iran was quick to respond. Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the “losing side cannot dictate terms” and Trump’s announcement “means nothing”.

He called the continuation of the US blockade of Iranian ports a “siege” that is “no different to bombardment”, according to reports from CNN, and said Tehran should respond militarily.

Mohammadi also accused Trump of extending the ceasefire as a “ploy to buy time for a surprise strike”.

“The time for Iran to take the initiative has come,” he said.

Ghalibaf is Iran’s long-serving parliament speaker and led the first round of negotiations with the US in Islamabad. He was expected to attend opposite US Vice President JD Vance for the second round of talks that have now been postponed indefinitely.

Trump’s latest pronouncement continue a trend of veering between extremes in his rhetoric on Iran. In an expletive-filled ⁠threat only a fortnight ago, he promised that a “whole civilisation will die tonight”, while he has otherwise appeared keen to ​end the violence and market uncertainty.

With Tuesday’s announcement, Trump again pulled back at the last moment from his threats to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and others have condemned those threats, noting international humanitarian law forbids attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The US and Israel began the war on February 28 with aerial bombardments of Iran. The conflict quickly spread to Gulf states that host US military bases and to Lebanon once the Iran-allied militant group Hezbollah joined the fighting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for decades sought to oust Iran’s leadership. Trump, however, has given shifting and sometimes contradictory rationales for joining Israel to launch the war ⁠and how he foresees it ending, stirring confusion in global markets.

More than 3000 civilians have been killed across the ‌region and hundreds of thousands displaced ​so far, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, and the war has led to the virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint in global energy markets between Iran and Oman, sending oil prices soaring ​and fears that the ‌global economy could enter a recession.

Iran has repeatedly exploited its ability to control the passage of oil tankers and other ships in the strait in response to US and Israeli attacks.

Before Trump’s latest announcement, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran’s negotiators had been willing to attend another round of talks if the US abandoned a policy of pressure and threats, and rejected negotiations aimed at surrender.

Iran has condemned the US Navy intercepting and seizing two commercial Iranian ships as part of its blockade, the second earlier on Tuesday. Its foreign ministry accused the US of “piracy at sea and state terrorism”.

The US, joined by multiple other countries, has condemned Iran for impeding freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

A first session of talks 10 days ​ago produced no agreement, with much of the focus on Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium.

Trump wants to seize the uranium to prevent Iran from enriching it further to ​the point where it could develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran ⁠says it has only a peaceful civilian nuclear program and a sovereign right to continue that as a signatory of the nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty.

-with AAP