Britain and France will lead a meeting of around 40 countries on Friday afternoon to discuss setting up an international task force aimed at re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. The strategic waterway has been largely closed to traffic for almost seven weeks following the US-Israeli attack on Iran, triggering a historic energy crisis across the world. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates will join the group of predominantly Western nations at the meeting to demand Iran upholds the freedom of navigation in the region and to draw up plans to secure the strait after a peace deal is reached.

The UK and France-led initiative is aimed at signalling support for US President Donald Trump, who has harshly criticised NATO members for refusing to join the war on Iran. The strait, which carried a fifth of the world’s oil and gas before the war, has fallen under Iranian control, with Tehran now charging transit fees on the small number of vessels that have left Gulf waters during the conflict. It is now trying to leverage its control over maritime traffic in the ongoing peace negotiations with the US.

How the maritime force would secure the strait remains unclear. Countries participating in the talks have ruled out deploying naval forces to the region before the war ends and have said any operations would be strictly defensive in nature. Countries backing the initiative have struggled to find a global consensus over re-opening the strait, with China and Russia vetoing a UN Security Council resolution drafted by Bahrain earlier this month.

Western nations this week declined to join the US blockade on Iranian ports, which was announced by the US president after peace talks in Islamabad last weekend ended without an agreement. Optimism grows for interim peace deal The meeting comes as Iran and the US offer different assessments of the ongoing negotiations ahead of the ceasefire deadline next Wednesday. Trump on Thursday again struck an optimistic tone about ending the regional war after US officials brokered a 10-day truce in Lebanon.

But Iranian officials downplayed prospects of a peace deal, saying yesterday that "fundamental" disagreements remain over the future of its nuclear programme. The two sides were unable to reach an agreement during marathon talks in Pakistan over the weekend. Pakistani officials, who are leading international efforts to broker an end to the conflict, are now racing to set up a second round of negotiations to prevent a return to the destructive six-week conflict.

"I think we're very close to making a deal with Iran," Trump told reporters outside the White House, adding that he may travel to Islamabad if a deal is reached. He later added that the war "should be ending pretty soon". Though chances of a final deal to end the war appear to be dimming, Iranian and Pakistani officials have indicated that an interim agreement may be struck by the ceasefire deadline, paving the way for technical talks aimed at a final settlement.

A Pakistani official told Reuters that its mediation efforts are making progress and that the two countries could sign a memorandum of understanding at an upcoming meeting. "Detailed agreement comes later. Both sides are agreeing in principle.

And technical bits come later," the source said. Iranian officials have said that the focus is now on reaching a preliminary deal to end the war due to disagreements over the nuclear issue and that the ceasefire could be extended to make room for new talks. "The fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and the duration of Iran’s nuclear restrictions are among the highly disputed issues for which no solution has yet been found," one official told the news agency.

Speculation over a second round of talks has grown since the weekend, when 21 hours of discussions failed to yield an agreement. US Vice President JD Vance identified the nuclear issue as a key sticking point, saying in Islamabad that Tehran had not provided guarantees it would not pursue a nuclear weapon. A Pakistani delegation led by the country's powerful military chief travelled to Tehran this week to discuss follow-up talks.

Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif is visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey this week in a bid to build momentum for renewed negotiations. Despite the negotiations, the Trump administration is continuing to build up military forces in the Middle East, this week authorising the deployment of another 6,000 troops to the region. An attempt by Democratic lawmakers to scale back the US military's presence in the region was defeated on Thursday after the Republican-controlled House rejected a resolution to curb Trump's war-making powers.