Trump agrees 2-week ceasefire, says Iran has proposed a ‘workable’ 10-point peace plan

U.S. President Donald Trump said late Tuesday he’s pulling back on his threats to launch devastating strikes on Iran, swerving to deescalate the war less than two hours before the deadline he set for Tehran to capitulate or else a “whole civilization will die tonight.”

Recommended Video

Trump said he was holding off on his threatened attacks on Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian targets, subject to Tehran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the pivotal waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime. He also said Iran has proposed a “workable” 10-point peace plan that could help end war the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it has accepted a two-week ceasefire in the war and that it would negotiate with the United States in Islamabad beginning Friday. “It is emphasized that this does not signify the termination of the war,” the council’s statement said.

In a post on his social media site, Trump said that provided Iran agreed “to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz” he would “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.”

Since the war began on Feb. 28, Trump has repeatedly backed off of deadlines just before they expire.

In doing so again Tuesday, Trump said he had come to the decision “based on conversations” with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Gen. Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief.

Sharif, in a post on X hours earlier, urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance. He used the same post to ask Iran to open the strait for two weeks.

The president said in his social media post that Iran has presented “a workable basis on which to negotiate.”

“Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump said.

Earlier Trump threats raised alarms

Trump’s expansive threat Tuesday did not seem to account for potential harm to civilians, prompting Democrats in Congress, some United Nations officials and scholars in military law to say such strikes would violate international law.

Tehran’s representative at the U.N., Amir-Saeid Iravani, said the threats “constitute incitement to war crimes and potentially genocide” and that Iran would “take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures” if Trump launches devastating strikes.

The U.S. and Israel have battered Iran with attacks targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear program. Iran has responded with a stream of strikes on Israel and Gulf Arab neighbors, causing regional chaos and outsized economic and political shock.

Late Tuesday, Pakistan’s prime minister urged Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks to allow diplomacy to advance. In a post on X, Shehbaz Sharif, whose country has been leading negotiations, also asked Iran to open up for two weeks the Strait of Hormuz.

Before the deadline, airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station, and the U.S. hit military infrastructure on Kharg Island, a key hub for Iranian oil production.

Trump has extended deadlines before

Since the war began, Trump has repeatedly imposed deadlines linked to threats, only to extend them. Tehran previously rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal by Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators, saying it wants a permanent end to the war.

Iran’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight. That’s despite Trump saying that U.S. forces could wipe out all bridges in Iran in a matter of hours and reduce all power plants to smoking rubble in roughly the same time frame.

It was not clear if airstrikes against Iran on Tuesday were linked to Trump’s threats to widen the civilian target list. At least two of the targets were connected to Iran’s rail network, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli warplanes struck bridges and railways in Iran.

Tehran fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure of a major bridge.

While Iran cannot match the sophistication of U.S. and Israeli weaponry or their dominance in the air, its chokehold on the strait since the war began in late February is roiling the world economy and raising the pressure on Trump both at home and abroad to find a way out of the standoff.

Trump keeps an off-ramp open

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, Trump said in an online post Tuesday morning. But he also seemed to keep open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”

Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.

Iranians have form