President Donald Trump extended the United States' ceasefire with Iran to give Tehran time to prepare what he called a unified proposal, while ordering the US military to maintain its blockade of Iranian ports. The decision delayed the possible return of military action without reducing the maritime pressure on Iran.
Trump said Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir had asked Washington to wait while Iranian leaders worked toward a common position. In a social media statement, he said the ceasefire would continue until the proposal was submitted and ensuing discussions reached a conclusion. He also directed US forces to remain prepared.
The ceasefire had been scheduled to expire on Wednesday. Its extension created an open-ended window tied to the Iranian proposal rather than a new fixed deadline. At the same time, preserving the blockade meant the pause applied differently to military attacks and to pressure on Iranian ports.
Trump also characterized Iran's leadership as seriously fractured, a description that framed the request for a unified position as both a diplomatic need and a sign of internal division. Neither supplied report detailed the competing Iranian views or identified which officials would produce the proposal, leaving its expected contents and timing unclear.
The announcement came as a US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance had been expected to travel to Islamabad for a second round of direct talks with Iranian representatives. US officials said the trip was delayed because of additional policy meetings at the White House. An earlier high-level round in Pakistan had ended without a breakthrough.
Pakistan's role placed Islamabad at the center of efforts to keep the negotiating channel open. The intervention attributed to Sharif and Munir did not itself resolve the dispute, but it secured additional time for Iran to formulate terms and for the United States to consider them.
The structure of Trump's decision combined restraint with leverage. Extending the ceasefire reduced the immediate risk of renewed strikes, while continuing the blockade preserved a central source of pressure. His instruction that the military remain ready also made clear that the pause was conditional on the diplomatic process moving forward.
The next test was whether Tehran could deliver the promised proposal and whether it offered enough common ground for talks to advance. Until then, the ceasefire remained in effect, the blockade continued and the delayed US delegation's next step was unresolved. Because the earlier talks had produced no breakthrough, the extension also prevented the scheduled expiration from becoming an automatic trigger for escalation. It left Washington free to judge the forthcoming document while Pakistan continued its intermediary role between governments that had not yet reconciled their positions.
