WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he was in “heated negotiations” involving the war with Iran after mediator Pakistan asked for a two-week extension of his Tuesday deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

“I can’t tell you, because right now we’re in heated negotiations,” Trump said in a telephone interview with Fox News when asked about the Pakistani request. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement earlier that Trump “has been made aware of the proposal, and a response will come.”

The comments came shortly after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif posted on social media that talks were “progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully” and that his country asked Iran to “to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture.”

“I can say this — that I know him very well. He’s a highly respected man, all over,” Trump said, referring to Sharif.

Trump earlier Tuesday threatened to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” as the U.S. continued attacks on the country’s main oil export facility. That prompted Iranian mediators to halt its participation in diplomatic discussions, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

Behind the scenes, mediators then raced to keep ceasefire talks on track. A senior White House official downplayed Iran’s maneuver and said that legitimate negotiations continued to take place. Trump said Monday it was “highly unlikely” he would agree to back off his deadline again.

The lead-up to Trump’s Tuesday 8 p.m. deadline has been marked by military escalation and increasingly bellicose threats from the U.S. president. Earlier in the day, American forces struck sites on Kharg Island similar to those that were hit in a round of attacks last month, but didn’t target energy infrastructure, according to U.S. officials.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump posted on social media. “Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight.”

Even as the U.S. and Israel kept up attacks on infrastructure earlier on Tuesday, Trump’s threat raised the specter of a massive new bombing campaign far exceeding anything they’ve carried out over the course of a campaign that began Feb. 28.

Oil prices fell in post-settlement trading after Sharif’s post, with Brent sliding to as low as $104.50 after settling near $109.

The conflict already has triggered a global energy crisis and threatened broader economic prospects. The International Monetary Fund is poised to cut its forecasts for global growth as a result of the war, Director Kristalina Georgieva told Bloomberg News in Washington.

“We were on the way of upgrading our growth projections for 2026,” she said. “Given the impact of the war, we are going to downgrade them.”

The U.S. leader’s latest ultimatum marks a critical juncture in the war that has killed more than 5,200 people, most of them in Iran and Lebanon, and seen energy facilities struck across the region. The president began issuing deadlines on March 21 to force Iran to reopen Hormuz, which carries roughly a fifth of seaborne oil shipments, and has repeatedly extended the timeline.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said his country remained open to talks but would take action if Trump made good on his latest threats to target civilian infrastructure.

“Iran will not stand idle in the face of such egregious war crimes,” Amir-Saeid Iravani said during a meeting of the UN Security Council. “It will exercise without hesitation its inherent right of self-defense and will take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures.”

Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have encouraged efforts to revive shipping traffic in the strait, amid concerns that it would have tacitly condoned military action.

Trump said during a news conference on Monday that freedom of navigation through Hormuz must be part of any deal. He has previously threatened to destroy Iranian power plants, bridges and other infrastructure as part of his ultimatum. The UN has warned that indiscriminate targeting of civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime, while Trump said he’s “not at all” concerned about that potential outcome.

Speaking earlier in Budapest, Vice President JD Vance said he’s confident Iran will issue a response in time. But he also hinted at a military operation that would surpass anything the U.S. and Israel have waged so far against Iran.

“They’ve got to know we’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use,” Vance said in Hungary. “The president of the United States can decide to use them and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don’t change their course of conduct.”

Strikes on Kharg Island are seen as particularly sensitive given its central role in the domestic and global energy market. Fox News said the U.S. targeted bunkers, a radar station and ammunition storage on Kharg, alongside an unintentional hit on the island’s landing docks.

Elsewhere, two people were killed in a U.S.-Israel attack on a railway bridge near the Iranian city of Kashan on Tuesday, state-run Nour News reported.

Israel is preparing for the possibility that fighting could continue for several more weeks, and on Tuesday told Iranians not to use their country’s railway network until 9 p.m. local time — the type of warning it sometimes issues before attacks on civilian areas.

Trump has repeatedly sent conflicting signals on what he’ll do with Iran’s oil sector, which he has openly coveted. At times, he’s mused about seizing control of the country’s crude — an outcome that he sees as expanding U.S. energy dominance and in turn earning the U.S. leverage in talks with China, people familiar with the matter say.

Iran has warned it would respond to that type of escalation by ramping up its own attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf — a move that could heighten the global fuel squeeze and amplify damage to the world economy.

The Islamic Republic launched seven ballistic missiles and several more drones at Saudi Arabia overnight into Tuesday, and debris from interceptions fell in the vicinity of some energy sites, the kingdom said. A key bridge connecting Bahrain and Saudi Arabia was briefly closed as precaution.

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With assistance from Devika Krishna Kumar, Magdalena Del Valle, Salma El Wardany, Jorgelina do Rosario and Shawn Donnan.

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