World
US President Donald Trump speaks about the conflict in Iran at the White House on April 6, 2026. Photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - US President Donald Trump has been “made aware” of a proposal by Pakistan for a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war, a White House official told Rudaw, noting that a response to the proposition is on the horizon.
In an email sent to Rudaw, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, “The President has been made aware of the proposal, and a response will come.”
The remarks came only hours before former U.S. President Donald Trump’s ultimatum for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz by midnight GMT on Tuesday and agree to end the conflict.
He warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if a deal is not achieved. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
However, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a late Tuesday post on X that “diplomatic efforts for a peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly, and powerfully, with the potential to lead to substantive results in the near future.”
He urged Trump to “allow diplomacy to run its course” and extend his deadline by two weeks, while also calling on “our Iranian brothers to open the Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture.”
Sharif also called on “all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve the conclusive termination of the war, in the interest of long-term peace and stability in the region.”
For his part, veteran US diplomat and former ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, remarked in a post on X that “there are rumors that Iran and the Trump administration have agreed to a two-week-long ceasefire. Fingers crossed.”
While Tehran is yet to officially comment on the Pakistani proposal, Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref remarked earlier in the day, “National security and infrastructure sustainability are the subjects of our precise calculations.”
In a seeming response to Trump’s warnings, Aref added in a post on X that “the [Iranian] government has finalized the necessary measures in detail for all scenarios,” and that “no threat is beyond our preparedness and intelligence.”
Nonetheless, some media outlets affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) indicated late on Tuesday that any “blunder” by the US president would be met with further escalation from Tehran.
Tasnim News Agency, citing an "informed military source," noted that if US President Trump targets Iran’s power plants and other facilities, Saudi Arabia's Aramco and Yanbu oil facilities, and the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah pipeline would be added to "Iran’s list of targets."
Last updated at 11:55 pm.
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