Senior representatives from the United States and Iran arrived in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, on the morning of April 11. Talks are scheduled there to end the war in the Middle East.
Reuters writes about this.
The Iranian delegation is led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The United States will be represented by President Donald Trumpʼs special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and the American delegation is led by Vice President J.D. Vance.
Axios sources say Vance has insisted on his participation in these talks. However, some US officials believe his participation is premature because the talks were not properly prepared.
American officials call the mission "the most important of their careers", but do not expect immediate results from the talks, as the sides still disagree on key issues.
The Iranians told the mediators that negotiators Witkoff and Kushner had deceived them, so Vanceʼs participation, given his status, could have contributed to progress.
"We look forward to the talks. I think they will be positive. If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we are ready to extend a hand to them. If they try to deceive us, they will find that our negotiating team is not so accommodating," Vance said before his trip to Pakistan, adding that President Donald Trump has given the negotiating team "pretty clear instructions".
The current talks between the US and Iran will be held at the highest level since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. They are also the first official in-person talks between the countries since 2015, when they reached an agreement on Iranʼs nuclear program.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Qalibaf said Washington had previously agreed to unfreeze Iranian assets and reach a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, where Israel has been attacking Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants. He said talks would not begin until those promises were fulfilled.
A day before the talks in Pakistan began, Donald Trump told the New York Post that US warships were re-armed to resume strikes on Iran if the talks failed. He added that the success or failure of the talks would be known “in about 24 hours”.
"We are loading the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons that have ever been created — even better than what we have used before, even at a level greater than what is needed for total destruction. And if there is no deal, we will use it and we will do it very effectively," the US president said.
War in the Middle East and negotiations between Iran and the US
On the morning of February 28, the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran. Iranʼs Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and almost the entire military leadership of the country — about 40 key high-ranking officials — were killed.
Iran, in response to the US and Israeli attacks, began shelling Arab countries and Israel. The war also halted tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost a fifth of the worldʼs oil exports passed. This led to a sharp increase in oil and gas prices.
On the night of April 8, Trump wrote that he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran. Later, Iran published a 10-point peace plan: under it, the parties would cease hostilities, the US would withdraw troops from the Middle East and would no longer attack Iranian bases, and ships would have limited access to the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks.
Iran would also be required to lift primary and secondary sanctions and compensate for losses. Iran would commit not to developing nuclear weapons, and the US would recognize Iranʼs right to enrich uranium.
But on the afternoon of April 8, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that ceasefire violations had been recorded in several places in the conflict zone in the Middle East. Reuters sources reported that Iran had struck the East-West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which is currently the only channel for exporting crude oil from the country, and other facilities. Before that, Iran announced an American attack on the refinery on Laban Island and threatened to respond.
Amidst Israelʼs attacks on Lebanon, Iran suspended vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Although media outlets previously reported, citing data from the ship tracking service MarineTraffic, that at least two ships had safely passed through the Strait of Hormuz on the morning of April 8.
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