BREAKING Trump, the latest information about the war with Iran, offered on his favorite TV, shortly before the ultimatum expires

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that his administration was in the middle of “heated negotiations” over war with Iran, amid an ultimatum in which he threatened to target the country's energy infrastructure.

The leader of the White House, however, refused to provide details about these discussions.

“I can't tell you, because right now we're in heated negotiations,” Trump told Fox News in a brief phone interview when asked what he thought of the talks.

Trump, however, said he would be briefed in detail on Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's proposal for a two-week ceasefire, CNN notes. To this proposal, the White House said earlier on Tuesday, “there will be an answer”.

“I can say this – that I know (the Pakistani prime minister, no) very well. He is a very respected man, everywhere,” Trump also told Fox.

Trump: Iran's call for population to form human shields around power plants 'totally illegal'

In another brief phone call, this time with NBC News, Donald Trump also declined to provide an update on the status of negotiations with Iran, but sharply criticized Tehran's call for the country's youth to line up in human chains around power plants that the US president has threatened to bomb.

“Totally illegal. They're not allowed to do that,” the White House leader said, according to The Guardian.

Asked what motivated him to say in the message published this morning that “an entire civilization is going to die tonight,” a threat that sent shock waves globally, Trump simply replied: “You'll have to find out for yourself.”

Pakistan's proposal

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has asked US President Donald Trump to extend by two weeks the deadline he set for Iran to end the Gulf oil embargo, Reuters previously reported.

Pakistan was the intermediary through which the United States and Iran communicated their terms for the cessation of hostilities, but mediators in Islamabad did not get signals that the two states were willing to compromise.

“To allow diplomacy to take its course, I honestly request President Truma to extend the deadline by two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests its Iranian brothers to open the Strait of Hormuz for a similar period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture,” Shehbaz Sharif wrote in a post on the X social network.

The Pakistani prime minister's attempt at a minimum compromise came just hours before the expiration of Trump's ultimatum to Iran to reopen maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a press release that President Trump had received the proposal.

“The president has been briefed on the proposal and a response will follow,” Leavitt said in a press release.

Neither camp has shown signs in recent hours that they are willing to make concessions. Donald Trump is “the only one” who knows “what he will do” in Iran, his spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday, a few hours before the expiration of the ultimatum, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, 3:00 a.m. Romanian time.

Human chains in Iran

Thousands of people formed human chains in front of power plants and on bridges in different cities of Iran on Tuesday to protest against Donald Trump's threats to carry out bombings on these infrastructures, according to the EFE and Agerpres agencies.

In Tehran, hundreds of people gathered in front of the country's largest power plant, the Damavand power plant, carrying Iranian flags and condemning the US threats, according to images broadcast on Iranian state television.

In the city of Kermanshah in the west of the country, a group of protesters gathered in front of the Bisotun power plant, carrying photos of the former Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed on February 28 on the first day of the American-Israeli bombing, and his successor and son, Mojtaba Khamenei, denouncing the attacks on the electrical infrastructure as a war crime.

Human chains were also formed in front of the Tabriz power plant in the northwestern city of the country and the Shahid Rajaei power plant in the northern city of Qazvin.

Mobilizations of this kind have been replicated in other parts of the country. In the city of Dezful, in the southwest, students formed a human chain on the city's historic bridge, a bridge that is over 1,700 years old.

The actions are part of a government campaign that has urged young people across the country to form human chains to “illustrate a symbol of unity and resistance in the face of the enemy”.

Iranian cultural figures, including the musician Ali Gamsari and the singer Benyamin Bahadori, have since Monday settled near such infrastructures.

On Monday, the American president threatened Iran that he will unleash “hell” on this country by attacking its bridges and power plants if it does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by the night of Tuesday to Wednesday (Romanian time).

“An entire civilization is going to die tonight, and it's never going to be brought back to life. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump threatened again on Tuesday.

In response to the US-Israeli war, Iran now allows only selective passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime corridor through which about 20 percent of the world's oil is transported.