American and Iranian delegations arrived in Islamabad on Saturday for high-stakes talks aimed at preserving a fragile ceasefire and testing whether weeks of war can give way to a more durable agreement.
The American team is led by Vice President JD Vance and includes Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner. The Iranian delegation, which arrived earlier, is headed by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Parliament, and Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister. Iranian media said the delegation includes about 70 members, among them technical experts in economic, political and security affairs, as well as media and support staff, a sign of the weight Tehran is placing on the negotiations.
The talks come days after Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in the six-week war that began on Feb. 28 with US and Israeli strikes on Iran. The conflict has killed thousands, shaken the Middle East and rattled global markets, particularly after Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted one of the world’s most important energy corridors.
The ceasefire halted large-scale US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, but it has not resolved several of the central disputes that fueled the conflict. Iran has not ended its pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel’s parallel war against Hezbollah in Lebanon has continued despite calls for de-escalation. Those unresolved fronts have cast immediate doubt over whether the truce can hold long enough to produce substantive diplomacy.
Ghalibaf raised the stakes before the meetings even began. In public remarks and social media posts, he said negotiations would not start unless the United States first moved on issues Tehran considers essential, including the release of frozen Iranian assets and progress toward a ceasefire in Lebanon. Iranian state media also quoted him as saying that Tehran was approaching the talks with goodwill but did not trust Washington and would judge the United States by whether it was prepared to offer what he called a “real agreement” that recognized Iran’s rights.
Trump, however, struck a confrontational tone on social media, accusing Iran of trying to use international waterways for leverage and saying Tehran was overplaying its hand. In a separate post, he suggested that the only reason Iran was still in a position to negotiate was because the United States had chosen diplomacy over further escalation.
Vance sounded more measured before leaving for Pakistan. He said he expected the talks to be positive but warned that the American side would not respond well if Iran tried to stall or manipulate the process. His comments reflected the administration’s dual message: publicly committed to negotiations, but eager to show it is prepared to walk away if the talks turn into delay.
Pakistan, which has taken on the role of intermediary, has cast the meeting as a pivotal moment. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the negotiations as “make or break,” underscoring how much is riding on an agreement not only for Iran and the United States, but also for a region already strained by war, energy disruption and widening instability.
At the center of the talks is the question of whether the ceasefire can be transformed into something broader. For Washington, priorities include restoring full access through the Strait of Hormuz and containing regional escalation. For Tehran, the demands include economic relief, access to frozen assets and guarantees that any diplomatic process will not be overtaken by continued military pressure from Israel or the United States.
Those differences are substantial. Iran’s continued hold over the strait remains a major point of contention, given its importance to global oil and gas shipments. Israel’s campaign in Lebanon has added another layer of volatility, with Tehran and its allies insisting that the fighting there cannot be separated from the wider crisis. And mistrust, built over years of failed diplomacy and sharpened by six weeks of war, hangs over the talks.
For now, both sides have shown enough willingness to come to the table. Whether that is enough to move beyond a temporary pause in fighting remains uncertain. The ceasefire has created an opening. It has not yet created agreement.
