DUBAI/WASHINGTON, April 16 -- US President Donald Trump said the war he launched with Israel on Iran was close to over, as the army chief of mediator Pakistan reached Tehran to try to prevent a renewal of the conflict. The diplomatic push came as US and Iranian officials weighed a return to Pakistan for further talks after negotiations there ended on Sunday without a breakthrough. Israel expects a two-week ceasefire agreed last week with the Iranians to be extended, an official told Reuters. Pakistan's military confirmed field marshal Asim Munir had arrived in Tehran. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Munir, who had mediated the last round of talks, was heading to Iran "to narrow gaps" between the two sides. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi welcomed Munir and the Pakistani delegation accompanying him, Iranian media said. "The purpose of the visit is to deliver a US message to the Iranian leadership and to plan the next round of negotiations," Iran's state-run Press TV reported. "I think you're going to be watching an amazing two days ahead," Trump told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, according to a post by the reporter on X, adding he did not think it would be necessary to extend the ceasefire. "I think it's close to over, yeah. I mean I view it as very close to over," Trump said in an interview on Fox Business Network conducted Tuesday and broadcast Wednesday. "We'll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly." Officials from Pakistan, Iran and Gulf states also said both sides could return to Islamabad in coming days. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday conversations for a second round of talks with the Iranians were productive and that those negotiations would likely be in Pakistan again. But reports that the White House has requested a ceasefire in the Iran war are wrong, she said. The talks last weekend broke down without an agreement to end the war, which Trump began alongside Israel on February 28, triggering Iranian attacks on Iran's Gulf neighbours and reigniting a conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Trump's optimism lifted global stocks. US stocks hit an all-time high with the S&P 500 rising 0.5%, just above a late-January record. Oil prices were up at around $95 per barrel after the US said its blockade of Iranian ports had halted seaborne trade in and out of Iran. Finance ministers from almost a dozen countries called on the US, Israel and Iran to implement their ceasefire in full and said the conflict would weigh on the global economy and markets even if it was resolved soon. During the first 48 hours of the US blockade on ships entering and exiting Iranian ports, no vessels have made it past U.S. forces, the US military said. Additionally, nine vessels have complied with direction from US forces to turn around and return toward an Iranian port or coastal area. Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that his negotiators were likely to return to Pakistan. Iran's nuclear ambitions were a key sticking point at last weekend's talks. The US proposed a 20-year suspension of all nuclear activity by Iran - an apparent concession from longstanding demands for a permanent ban - while Tehran suggested a halt of three to five years. Washington has also pressed for any enriched nuclear material to be removed from Iran, while Tehran has demanded that international sanctions against it be lifted. One source involved in the talks said back-channel discussions had made progress in narrowing gaps....