ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – APRIL 11: U.S. Vice President JD Vance (C) walks with Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Military Employees Subject Marshall Asim Munir (L), and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Overseas Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar after arriving for talks with Iranian officers on April 11, 2026 at Islamabad, Pakistan. (Picture by Jacquelyn Martin – Pool/Getty Photographs)
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Pakistan confirmed the arrival of a delegation of Iranian negotiators forward of talks on Saturday with the U.S. to finish the six-week-old warfare Washington and Tel Aviv have led towards Tehran.
The negotiations will search to cement a two-week ceasefire that started Tuesday however which has come below pressure as Iran continues to dam most transport visitors via the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important chokepoint for oil and gasoline provides.
Pakistan’s international ministry stated the Iranian delegation led by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived within the capital Islamabad late Friday.
Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Overseas Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar “expressed the hope that events would interact constructively, and reiterated Pakistan’s need to proceed facilitating the events in direction of reaching [a] lasting and sturdy resolution to the battle,” Pakistan’s international ministry stated in a put up on X.
However query marks hold over the ceasefire and the end result of the talks. Ghalibaf warned Friday that scheduled negotiations to finish the warfare with the USA can not start until Israel halts assaults on Lebanon and until the U.S. releases Tehran’s frozen belongings.
Ghalibaf issued that ultimatum after an American delegation led by Vice President JD Vance left for Islamabad for the talks.
“Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the events have but to be carried out: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the discharge of Iran’s blocked belongings previous to the graduation of negotiations,” Ghalibaf stated in an X put up.
“These two issues should be fulfilled earlier than negotiations start,” he wrote.
Earlier Friday, Vance instructed reporters he thinks the negotiations might be “constructive,” whereas warning Iran to not “play us.”
Vance’s staff landed in Islamabad early Saturday and was met by U.S. Particular Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Trump’s frustration with Iran
In the meantime, Trump has expressed frustration with Iran persevering with to dam most transport visitors via the Strait of Hormuz.
The strait is the world’s most very important transport route for oil. Earlier than the warfare, 20% of the world’s crude was transported via that passage.
In an announcement Tuesday night, Trump stated that the U.S. would conform to a two-week suspension of hostilities topic to Iran agreeing to an entire and fast reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
However since then, vessel visitors via the strait stays almost as tightly throttled because it has been for the reason that warfare started on Feb. 28.
In a Fact Social put up on Thursday night, Trump fumed, “There are experiences that Iran is charging charges to tankers going via the Hormuz Strait — They higher not be and, if they’re, they higher cease now!”
Iran “is doing a really poor job, dishonorable some would say, of permitting Oil to undergo the Strait of Hormuz,” the president wrote in a follow-up put up. “That’s not the settlement we now have!”