WASHINGTON, April 7 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Monday proposed a plan to ease hostilities between Iran and the United States, sharing the initiative with both capitals just as U.S. President Donald Trump's deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz approaches.

Describing the ceasefire negotiations with the Iranian side via intermediaries as "going well," Trump also threatened to destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran if no peace deal is reached with Tehran before 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time Tuesday night (0000 GMT Wednesday).

With tensions mounting across the region, there is little expectation that Iran will comply with Trump's demands. Why is a deal so hard to reach?

UNRELIABLE PROMISE

On Sunday, the United States, Iran, and regional intermediaries were reportedly holding talks centered on a 45-day pause in hostilities, the first stage of a broader two-phase agreement that may bring the conflict to a temporary close.

However, Tehran has been pushing for a permanent ceasefire, with assurances that neither the United States nor Israel would carry out further attacks, according to Iranian officials, who also said that Iran has received messages from mediators including Pakistan, Türkiye and Egypt.

"We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won't be attacked again," reported The Associated Press, quoting Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo.

In late March, U.S. media reported that Washington had conveyed a 15-point plan to Tehran through Pakistan in an effort to end the war. Iranian officials later dismissed the proposal, describing it as "excessive and disconnected from the realities on the battlefield."

Despite ongoing negotiations, U.S. airstrikes inside Iran have continued, prompting Iranian officials to prepare for further attacks and casting doubt on whether talks will limit military action.

"If attacks on civilian targets are repeated, the subsequent phases of our offensive and retaliatory operations will be carried out much more crushingly and extensively," Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesman, said on Monday.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the same day that a ceasefire would only give opponents time to regroup and commit further crimes.

As the deadline looms, analysts said that discussions are continuing, though they concede that the two sides remain far apart. They also questioned the reliability of the United States' assurances, noting that Washington has not stopped Israel from launching strikes on targets in Gaza, even after a ceasefire was reached last year.

"We are deeply grateful to Pakistan for its efforts and have never refused to go to Islamabad. What we care about are the terms of a conclusive and lasting END to the illegal war that is imposed on us," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday.

HORMUZ FACE-OFF

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pressing Trump to withhold any ceasefire deal unless Iran offers concessions, including reopening the Strait of Hormuz, reported Axios, a U.S. digital news outlet.

Shortly after the United States and Israel launched massive attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, Iran effectively closed the critical waterway for global energy trade.

Since then, the United States has long made the immediate reopening of the strait a precondition for any agreement. Trump claimed Monday at a press conference that the United States should impose tolls on vessels passing through the strait, stressing that reopening the global energy chokepoint must be part of a deal to end the war.

"What about us charging tolls?" Trump said. "I'd rather do that than let them (Iranians) have them."

The Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints, saw roughly 20 million barrels of oil and oil products pass through each day in 2025 alone, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"Iran's power is the Hormuz Strait," Araghchi said on March 25.

The Strait of Hormuz "will be reopened" when a portion of transit tolls is used to compensate for "all the damage caused" by the war, BBC reported, quoting Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, a spokesman for the Iranian president's office.

Trump could also extend the deadline, a move he has done several times.

On March 26, Trump issued a second ultimatum in the span of a week, demanding that Iran fully reopen the strait to international shipping. In a later statement, he said that at Iran's request, he was "pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 days."

NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Trump and Tehran have long been at odds over Iran's nuclear program, and this is hardly the first confrontation. In June 2025, Trump suspended negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and carried out strikes on three of its nuclear facilities.

In February this year, following a month marked by a significant U.S. military buildup in the region, Trump once again accused Tehran of dragging its feet in nuclear talks and launched with Israel attacks on Tehran.

"Only President Trump knows what he will do, and the entire world will find out tomorrow night if bridges and electric plants are annihilated," said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly on Monday.

While United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said attacks on power plants and bridges would represent "a violation of international law," Trump dismissed the statement, saying, "You know what a war crime is? Having a nuclear weapon."

Iran is believed to be in possession of a stockpile of 60-percent enriched uranium that is reportedly buried "under the rubble" of its bombed nuclear facilities.

While the United States and Israel justified their strikes on Iran as targeting nuclear facilities, subsequent attacks also hit schools, civilian infrastructure, and hospitals.

"I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," Trump said on April 1 in his first formal address to the nation since launching a war on Iran, accusing Tehran of trying to carry out "campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield."

In early April, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused the United States of launching a sudden attack on Iran amid ongoing negotiations, calling it a "war crime" for targeting the country's energy and industrial facilities.

Analysts suggested that U.S. strikes on Iran have gone far beyond nuclear facilities, inflicting economic damage that will be difficult to repair in the short term and creating a major obstacle to reaching any agreement. ■