Face to face between the USA and Iran: negotiations underway
The conversations between the two delegations begin with Pakistan as mediator and doubts about the difficulty of reconciling
BarcelonaTalks have begun between the United States and Iran in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, to end six weeks of war. American and Iranian representatives are negotiating face-to-face with Pakistani representatives acting as mediators, according to sources from the Reuters agency. Although they were due to start first thing in the morning, what has put a brake on the start of direct talks between the two delegations was Washington accepting a series of conditions from Tehran to sit down and negotiate. Among the red lines of the Islamic Republic were the release of Iran's blocked assets, the payment of war reparations, and a ceasefire that was to be applied to the entire region, including Lebanon.
This morning, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with US Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to reports from the White House and Sharif's office. And hours earlier, the Iranian delegation, headed by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, had met with the Pakistani representative to determine the conditions for face-to-face negotiations.
Despite optimism that the leaders are meeting face-to-face, negotiations could easily get bogged down due to the difficulty of reconciling the two starting positions and the harshness of the cross-accusations between the sides. "We will negotiate with our finger on the trigger," warned Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani on state television. "While we are open to talks, we are also fully aware of the lack of trust; therefore, Iran's diplomatic team is entering this process with the utmost caution."
Warnings also came from the American side: "The Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards, beyond short-term extortion to the world by using international waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!" stated Donald Trump. His president, JD Vance, while en route to Pakistan, assured that he expected a positive outcome but warned the Iranian delegation that if they tried to deceive them, "they will find that the [American] negotiating team is not very receptive."
Just as bilateral talks have kicked off, Donald Trump has sent a message on Truth Social stating that the United States military has begun clearing the Strait of Hormuz and that all Iranian mining ships have been sunk.
Differences
The duration of the talks is also unclear. The Tasnim news agency, linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reports that they are expected to last only one day. Therefore, they will end tonight.
Among the points of contention are Tehran's tight control over the Strait of Hormuz, the ongoing conflict in Lebanon, and uranium reserves. Iran also demands a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israeli attacks against Hezbollah militants with the support of Iran have killed nearly 2,000 people since the start of the fighting in March.