Iran

NPR - An Israeli official informed NPR that the U.S. is planning for talks to happen within the coming days in Pakistan. Iran’s Foreign Ministry says that the U.S. reached out to the country seeking discussions to end the conflict. Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan are actively involved in de-escalation efforts and officials from the three countries met in Saudi Arabia last week to discuss containing the war. NPR’s Aya Batrawy tells Up First one of the challenges the talks face is that there is no trust between Tehran and Washington. In addition, with Iran’s top leaders being killed in the conflict, it is uncertain who will represent Iran in the talks. Trump has set tough conditions for peace, including no nuclear enrichment by Iran, a demand Iran rejected prior to the war. Israel also wants conditions that could lead to regime change.

Bloomberg - The Iran war is creating waves across the global economy, affecting everyone from Australian farmers to cricket fans in Pakistan.

• As concerns about fertilizer supplies mount, wheat farmers in Australia—one of the world’s biggest agricultural exporters—are paring back plantings.
• It’s a similar story in Calabria, the toe end of Italy’s boot, where winemakers worry about squeezed profits as higher diesel, fertilizer and pesticide costs intersect with Trump’s tariffs.
• Pakistan ordered fans of its top cricket tournament to stay home and watch matches on television to conserve fuel. Indian filmmakers are delaying cinema releases so as not to miss out on the lucrative audience in the Arab Gulf, where several countries have been targeted by Iran.
• It all adds to worries that a prolonged energy supply crunch will drive up food bills, stoking global concerns about inflation arising from the conflict.

MS NOW - It is a good thing that Trump did not hit Iran’s power plants, because that would effectively be an attack on the country’s civilian population, and it would mark yet another escalation in a war that should never have started in the first place. But there’s reason to be skeptical of Trump’s pivot.

Multiple Iranian officials deny the existence of the U.S.-Iranian negotiations Trump says were so productive. When asked about Iran’s denials, Trump insisted that his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner spoke with an Iranian official Sunday night, identifying them only as “the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader.” But just days ago, Trump boasted about how he had killed so many of Iran’s leaders that “we have nobody to talk to — and you know what? We like it that way.” MORE

 

NY Times -  President Trump seized on initial contacts between Iranian and American officials to back away on Monday from his threat to strike power plants in Iran, declaring that the countries had begun “productive conversations” for the first time since the war began more than three weeks ago.

Iranian officials publicly denied that any negotiations about terms to end the war were underway, and American officials said the contacts were in a very early stage and not substantive.

But Mr. Trump used the opening of even an early dialogue as an offramp from the threat he issued Saturday to attack Iran’s power plants in retribution for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran had vowed not to capitulate, and the 48-hour deadline Mr. Trump had set would have expired on Monday.