Iran Aiming for More Concessions Before Returning to Talks

As the current leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran so far has refused to appear in Pakistan for the second round of talks with the United States, its military is warning of readiness to unleash “hell for Americans and Israelis.” As the April ceasefire is coming to an end, the question is, why is Tehran taking a huge gamble by refusing more talks, when war can restart and put the regime in danger?

On April 21, 2026, less than two days before the end of the current ceasefire, the Tasnim website in Tehran carried a dispatch saying Tehran is ready for war after the U.S. naval blockade and President Donald Trump’s excessive demands. “Iran is fully prepared for the possibility of a renewed war and has also prepared new surprises for a potential next round of fighting,” it wrote in the style of a war communique.

After the first round of talks on April 11-12, behind-the-scenes negotiations have continued between Washington and Tehran through intermediaries and perhaps even unofficial direct channels. Trump’s public statements and U.S. media reports show a dynamic diplomatic process in progress. Perhaps Iranian decision-makers are aware that a failed second round would be worse for them than prolonging this process and prefer not to go to Islamabad before they secure better terms.

Some reports on April 21 indicated that the second round might well take place in the last possible moment on April 22, before the ceasefire expires.

Despite statements by Trump and Vice President JD Vance, there has been no “regime change” in Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls decisions in Tehran and Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, as speaker of parliament and a former member of the Revolutionary Guard, is only a representative of the new ruling circle.

Ghalibaf posted in Persian on April 20 that “Trump, by imposing a blockade and violating the ceasefire, is trying—so he imagines—to turn the negotiating table into a table of surrender, or to justify renewed warmongering. We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and over the past two weeks we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield.”

Although it is hard to decipher Trump’s immediate plans amid contradictory statements, he told Bloomberg’s White House correspondent Jeff Mason that he’s not “in a rush to get a deal with Iran and fighting is likely to resume as soon as the ceasefire ends.”

Tehran still had time left when the second round of talks was scheduled to start on April 20 and most likely wanted to see if more concessions can be extracted in the pre-meeting talks. Some reports claimed that Washington already made significant concessions, such as accepting a ten- or fifteen-year suspension of large-scale uranium enrichment instead of Trump’s oft-repeated demand of banning it permanently.

In a social media post, Trump claimed that the deal he is making with Iran “will be FAR BETTER than the JCPOA,” a statement that led some observers to comment that if the president is comparing his deal with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal, “it is undoubtedly a terrible deal.” But on April 21, he also said he is ready for renewed war if talks fail.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked sources ridiculed Vance by saying that the chief U.S. negotiator had packed and unpacked his suitcase five times in recent days, as Tehran kept playing its guessing game about attending the talks. It appears that Tehran has pre-conditions for an end to the naval blockade, besides more strategic concessions by Washington, before attending more negotiations.

However, the Iranian side faces pressures from the naval blockade, not only for lack of imports of essential goods, but also the prospect of halting oil production since it cannot ship the crude to China. Iran is running out of oil storage capacity and soon will be forced to halt production, which can damage oil wells permanently. For this reason, the Trump administration has leverage and need not issue concessions, especially on the nuclear issue and the Strait of Hormuz.