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Iran News Today: Tehran Rejects Pakistan Talks

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Iran strikes Gulf energy network as oil surges past $110

Iran news today centers on Tehran’s formal refusal to send negotiators to Islamabad, Al Jazeera reported Monday, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei stating that “no clear prospect for productive negotiations is foreseen under current conditions,” even as a US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance prepared to depart for Pakistan with no Iranian counterpart confirmed to meet them.

Summary

  • Baghaei cited the US naval blockade and the Sunday seizure of the Touska as ceasefire violations that make talks impossible, calling US statements about negotiations “a media game” and a “blame game.”
  • Iran’s state news agency IRNA said Tehran’s absence from the second round stems from Washington’s “excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, and repeated contradictions.”
  • Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that Iranian and Pakistani foreign ministers spoke by phone Sunday about the need for continued dialogue, leaving a narrow opening for Iran to reverse its public position before Wednesday’s ceasefire expiry.

Iran news today delivered the most negative diplomatic signal yet in the ceasefire’s final days. Iran’s Foreign Ministry formally declared it had no plans to attend a second round of Pakistan-mediated negotiations, arriving on the same morning that President Trump announced a US delegation was already heading to Islamabad and Pakistan had deployed thousands of security personnel around the capital’s Red Zone in preparation.

The contradiction between Washington’s public confidence and Tehran’s formal rejection has become the central dynamic of the ceasefire’s expiration window.

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Iranian spokesman Baghaei posted on X that Washington had “violated the ceasefire from the beginning,” citing both the ongoing US naval blockade of Iranian ports since April 13 and the Sunday seizure of the Touska as grounds for refusing to negotiate under current conditions. Iran’s state agency IRNA described the US approach as designed to blame Tehran for any breakdown.

The first round of Islamabad talks, held April 11 and 12, lasted 21 hours and ended with Vance saying Iran refused to agree it would not develop nuclear weapons. Iran’s state broadcaster called the failure a result of US excessive demands. The two central sticking points, the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, remain unresolved.

Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in state television remarks that Iran remains ready militarily even while pursuing diplomacy. “It is impossible for others to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while we cannot,” he said, tying the strait’s opening directly to the US lifting its blockade.

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Pakistan has framed the negotiations as an ongoing process rather than a single round, referring to an “Islamabad process” and continuing to mediate between the parties. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday, and their readout noted the need for “continued dialogue and engagement.”

Why Iran’s Suspicion Is Running High

Tehran has told intermediaries it suspects the US announcement of talks is cover for a planned military strike timed to coincide with the ceasefire’s expiry. That fear is not irrational: Trump has framed the ceasefire repeatedly as Iran’s “last chance” and has renewed his threats to bomb Iranian power plants and bridges if no deal is reached by Wednesday. The Sunday seizure of the Touska, coming hours after Trump announced the Pakistan talks, deepened Iranian suspicion that military action and diplomacy are being coordinated as pressure rather than as alternatives.

An Iranian parliamentary official told Al Jazeera on Monday that Iran would “likely” send a team “today or tomorrow,” suggesting that the Foreign Ministry’s public rejection and the internal deliberations may not be the same position. Pakistan’s continued preparations suggest Islamabad has reason to believe Iran may still participate despite the public statement.

For crypto markets, every Iran hopes signal has previously driven a fast BTC rally as shorts covered. The pattern from prior talks collapse episodes shows the reverse is equally true: a confirmed breakdown of negotiations with no second round produces an immediate risk-off move that tests Bitcoin’s support levels around $73,000 to $74,000.

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Crypto World

Coin Center Says Crypto Developers’ Code Protected Under First Amendment

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Coin Center Says Crypto Developers' Code Protected Under First Amendment

Crypto lobby Coin Center has expanded on its argument that software code is free speech and should be protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution, amid continued uncertainty over whether crypto developers could be liable for how their inventions are used.

In a report published Monday, Coin Center Executive Director Peter Van Valkenburgh and Director of Research Lizandro Pieper said writing and publishing crypto software code is the same as writing a book or publishing a recipe.

The pair argued that the First Amendment, which protects individuals’ freedom of speech and expression, offers strict constitutional protection for developers who only publish and maintain software. 

“They are speakers and inventors, not agents, custodians, or fiduciaries. Extending pre-registration or licensing requirements to this speech activity drops the historical logic of financial oversight and imposes a classic prior restraint on activities that are primarily speech and expression—which is almost always unconstitutional,” they added.

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Source: Peter Van Valkenburgh

Crypto software developers have been seeking legal protections to shield themselves from criminal liability over the software they create. Last year saw several high-profile convictions of crypto developers based on how their software was used, including the trial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm.

Regulation applies when devs interact directly with users

Van Valkenburgh and Pieper said the paper is aimed at providing a framework for courts and regulators to distinguish between protected software publication and a developer’s professional conduct. 

They argued that a developer crosses into regulatable conduct when controlling user assets, executing transactions for users or making decisions on users’ behalf.

“Lower court confusion over the distinction between conduct and speech naturally found in software publishing has fueled the development of what might be called a functional code theory of diminished First Amendment protection,” they said.

Source: Neeraj Agrawal 

“Some courts have suggested that because software can be executed to produce real-world effects, it resembles conduct rather than speech,” they added.

“We argue that such activities are pure speech and that the Supreme Court’s existing jurisprudence insists on this interpretation even if some lower courts have gone astray.”

They cited the 1985 case of Lowe v. SEC, in which the Supreme Court found that a publisher that does not hold assets on behalf of a client or take action on the client’s behalf is protected by free speech and does not count as practicing a regulated profession. 

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Crypto developers can’t be used as scapegoats

In some cases, crypto software has eliminated certain traditional middlemen, with self-custody and peer-to-peer transactions removing the need for a central authority to send funds or hold them. 

Traditionally, financial institutions acting on a user’s behalf as intermediaries are regulated by governments and required to hold licenses.

Related: Coin Center urges Senate not to axe crypto developer protection bill

Van Valkenburgh and Pieper said that while it is challenging to build regulatory frameworks around new technology, declaring software developers to be middlemen for “administrative convenience” is not the answer either. 

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“Crypto software does not necessitate the invention of new legal doctrines or novel carveouts. It requires the faithful application of settled First Amendment principles to a new technological context,” they added.

“In the age of computers, where software is the primary means for expressing ideas and organizing economic life, those principles matter more, not less. Writing and publishing code is speech. And in a free society, speech cannot be licensed into silence.”

Storm was convicted last year on charges of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, but his lawyers have been working on a motion to dismiss using the Supreme Court case, Cox Communications Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, to argue he had no intent to participate in the crimes of which he is accused 

The co-founders of privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet Samourai Wallet were also found guilty on the same charge and were sentenced to between four and five years in prison.

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