Iranian delegation lands in Islamabad ahead of 'make-or-break' talks

ISLAMABAD/DUBAI/BEIRUT/WASHINGTON - Iran's negotiating team arrived in Islamabad on Friday for peace talks with the United States, even as Tehran insisted on measures it said needed to be addressed first, throwing last-minute doubt over the meetings.

US President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in the six-week war on Tuesday, just hours before a deadline after which Trump had threatened to destroy Iran's civilization.

The ceasefire has halted US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran. But it has not ended Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies, or calmed a parallel war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran's ‌parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X that Washington had previously agreed to unblock Iranian assets and to a ceasefire in Lebanon, and added that talks would not start until those pledges are fulfilled.

The Iranian delegation, led by Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, arrived in Islamabad, the nation's foreign ministry said. Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that the group consists of around 70 members, including technical specialists in economic, security and political fields as well as media personnel and support staff, reflecting what it described as the high sensitivity of the negotiations.

Speaking from Islamabad, Qalibaf said Tehran had goodwill towards negotiations but no trust in the United States, adding that Iran was ready to reach a deal if Washington offered what he described as a genuine agreement and granted Iran its rights, Iranian state media reported.

While there was no immediate comment from the White House on the Iranian demands, Trump said in a social media post that the only reason the Iranians were alive was to negotiate a deal.

"The Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!" he said.

US Vice President JD Vance, who will lead the US delegation, said he expected a positive outcome as he headed to Pakistan, but added: "If they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive."

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a national address on Friday night, laid out the stakes of the talks.

"The permanent ceasefire is the next difficult phase, which is to resolve the complicated issues through negotiation. This, as called in English, is a make-or-break phase," Sharif said.

Israeli-Hezbollah fighting continues

The Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, will hold talks in Washington on Tuesday, Israeli and Lebanese officials said. But the two sides have issued conflicting statements on what the talks would cover.

Lebanon's presidency said the two held a phone call on Friday and agreed to discuss announcing a ceasefire and setting a start date for bilateral talks under US mediation. But Israel's embassy in Washington said the talks would constitute the start of "formal peace negotiations," and that Israel had refused to discuss a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Israel and the US have said the campaign against militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon is not part of the Iran-US ceasefire. Hours after it was announced, Israel launched the biggest attack of the war, killing more than 350 people in surprise strikes on heavily populated areas, Lebanese authorities said.

Israeli strikes continued across southern Lebanon on Friday. One strike on a government building in the city of Nabatieh killed 13 members of Lebanon's state security forces, President Joseph Aoun said in a statement.

Hezbollah said in a statement on its Telegram channel that it fired rocket salvos at northern Israeli towns in response.

Lebanese authorities say at least 1,953 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since March 2.

Iranian hard line

The hard line taken by Iran's leaders ahead of the negotiations followed a defiant message from its new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday.

Khamenei, yet to be seen in public since taking over from his father, who was killed on the war's first day, said Iran would demand compensation for all wartime damage.

"We will certainly not leave unpunished the criminal aggressors who attacked our country," he said.

Although Trump has declared victory and degraded Iran's military capabilities, the war has not achieved many of the aims he set out at the start: to deprive Iran of the ability to strike its neighbors, dismantle its nuclear program, and make it easier for its people to overthrow their government.

Iran still possesses missiles and drones capable of hitting its neighbors and a stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of uranium enriched near the level needed to make a bomb. Its clerical rulers, who faced a popular uprising just months ago, withstood the onslaught with no sign of organized opposition.

Tehran's agenda at the talks includes demands for major new concessions, including the end of sanctions that crippled its economy for years, and acknowledgment of its authority over the Strait of Hormuz, where it aims to collect transit fees and control access in what would amount to a huge shift in regional power.

Iran's ships were sailing through the strait unimpeded on Friday, while those of other countries remained hemmed inside.

Disruption to energy supplies has fed inflation and slowed the global economy, with an impact expected to last for months even if negotiators succeed in reopening the strait.

US monthly inflation data released on Friday, the first to show the war's impact, showed consumer prices rose by 0.9% in March, the fastest rate since the mid-2022 inflation shock that eroded support for Trump's predecessor Joe Biden. —Reuters