Trump Blinks, Promises to Hold Off Escalation; Pak Said to Play Mediation Role as India Remains MIA; Trans Community Opposes Modi Govt Bill
For subscribers: From shock & awe to Hormuz trap, SC partially cites CITES to let Vantara off probe hook, Justice Bhuyan laments lack of space for dissent in ‘Viksit Bharat’
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March 23, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
Unwilling to test Iran’s resolve to retaliate against US strikes on its power plants with similar attacks across the Gulf, President Donald Trump today blinked – and extended his 48-hour Hormuz deadline by five days. He also claimed the US and Iran had begun talking to each other, and that a deal was in the offing. Trump being Trump, no one really trusts anything he is saying unless there is independent confirmation. And Iran has openly denied there’d been any talks, insisting the US President’s remarks were aimed at cooling world oil prices.
“No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped,” MB Ghalibaf, Iran’s speaker and a senior person in the Iranian establishment tweeted tonight.
Axios quotes a “US source” as saying Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan “have been passing messages between the US and Iran over the past two days in an effort to de-escalate – but it is far from clear that Iran has any intention of shifting from its position that what the US needs to do is stop its attacks and then compensate Iran for the damage it has caused. “There aren’t any negotiations taking place. The Iranian side has simply communicated its conditions to [the U.S.] and even that has been done indirectly,” through intermediary countries, an unnamed Iranian official told DropSite. He also provided a list of Iran’s conditions for ending the war.
Meanwhile, a former Pakistani foreign minister, Jalil Abbas Jilani, confirmed to the India Cable that Islamabad is actively seeking to mediate. “I can confirm that we are playing an active and positive role to defuse the situation,” he said, adding, “We are in touch with the US and Iran.” Jilani was Pakistan’s foreign secretary and also served as his country’s ambassador to the US. Dawn also quotes an unnamed Pakistani official as saying
“Pakistan’s efforts are a reaffirmation of its role as a “net regional stabiliser” and Islamabad leveraging its “unique diplomatic position” to shift the focus from confrontation toward meaningful dialogue.”
Regardless of how serious these efforts are, events of the past 24 hours have underlined one thing: India is completely missing in action. As the Bhutanese editor Tenzin Lamsang noted,
Twenty-four days after the US and Israel attacked Iran and 26 days after he returned from hugging one of the principal architects of a war that has disrupted the lives of ordinary Indians, Prime Minister Modi read out a list of bromides in parliament about the conflict and its “unprecedented challenges”.’
Dampened by the rise in oil prices and concerns over the impact that the West Asia conflict will have on India’s energy security and economy, the rupee plumbed a new low of 93.94 against the dollar on Monday, beating the previous record of 93.735 set on Friday. Trump’s announcement of halting
