US PRESIDENT Donald Trump said today that his negotiators will return to Islamabad on Monday for peace talks with Iran.

In a social media post, President Trump said the US will send officials to the Pakistani capital to take part in a second round of talks with Iranian negotiators.

Talks last weekend in Islamabad ended without a deal.

In his post, the US president accused Iran of violating a two-week ceasefire that is due to expire on Wednesday by opening fire at shipping on Saturday in the Strait of Hormuz.

President Trump threatened to destroy civilian infrastructure in Iran if Tehran failed to accept the terms he was offering.

He said: “We’re offering a very fair and reasonable deal and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the US is going to knock out every single power plant and every single bridge in Iran.”

But at the time the Star went to print, Iran had not yet decided to send a negotiating team to Islamabad and, according to a report by the Tasnim news agency today, Tehran says that it will not enter talks as long as the US blockade continues.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said: “The US’s so called ‘blockade’ of Iran’s ports or coastline is not only a violation of the Pakistani-mediated ceasefire but also both unlawful and criminal.”

Iran has doubled down on its pledge to restrict ships passing through the Strait as long as the US blockade remains in place.

The duelling blockades have complicated Pakistani-led mediation attempts and raised questions about whether the two-week truce can be extended.

“It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot,” Iranian parliamentary Speaker Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf said in an interview aired on state television late on Saturday.

Speaker Qalibaf, who is Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with the US, slammed the US blockade as a “naive decision made out of ignorance.” 

Before President Trump’s latest remarks, Speaker Qalibaf insisted that Iran was seeking peace despite deep-seated distrust of the US.

“There will be no retreat in the field of diplomacy,” he said, acknowledging that the gap between the two sides remained wide.

Iran had announced the strait’s reopening after a 10-day truce between Israel and the Hezbollah resistance group in Lebanon took hold on Friday. 

But after President Trump insisted the US blockade “will remain in full force” until Tehran reaches a deal with the US, Iran said it would continue enforcing its restrictions in the strait.