Dhaka, April 8 -- The United States and Iran have agreed to a two-week ceasefire, reaching a deal less than two hours before President Donald Trump's deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the wiping out of "a whole civilisation".

The announcement by Trump late on Tuesday represented an abrupt turnaround from his extraordinary warning earlier, and came after mediation efforts by Pakistan's military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and its Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Sharif later said in a post on X he had invited Iranian and US delegations to meet in Islamabad on Friday.

The eleventh-hour deal was subject to Iran's agreement to pause its blockade of oil and gas supplies through the strait, Trump said. The waterwa...