High-Stakes Iran-US Talks Begin Amid Fragile Ceasefire

Islamabad- A senior Iranian delegation has arrived in Islamabad for pivotal negotiations with the United States, raising cautious hopes for diplomacy even as Tehran warned that failure to meet its preconditions -- including a ceasefire in Lebanon -- could derail the process before it begins.

Headed by parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf, the delegation landed in the Pakistani capital late on Friday and was received by Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and other senior officials. The talks, scheduled to begin on Saturday, come amid a fragile, Pakistan-brokered ceasefire and intensifying global scrutiny.

The Iranian team includes foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, Supreme National Defence Council secretary Ali Akbar Ahmadian, central bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, and several lawmakers, reflecting the breadth of political, military and economic stakes involved.

Preconditions and distrust

Shortly before departure, Qalibaf reiterated Tehran's firm conditions: a halt to Israeli attacks in Lebanon and the release of Iran's blocked assets must precede negotiations. The demands are rooted in a 10-point proposal that forms the basis of the current ceasefire framework.

"Two measures ... must be fulfilled before negotiations begin," he said, warning that diplomacy would otherwise lack credibility.

Upon arrival, Qalibaf struck a sceptical tone, citing what he described as repeated American "betrayal" during past negotiations. "We have goodwill, but we do not have trust," he said, adding that Iran would only engage meaningfully if Washington demonstrated genuine commitment to recognising Iranian rights.

He warned that any attempt to use talks as a "deception operation" would be met with resistance, stressing Iran's readiness to defend its interests independently.

Vance's high-stakes mission

US Vice-President JD Vance arrived shortly after, leading the American delegation in what marks a rare moment of direct, high-level engagement between Washington and Tehran.

Vance is joined by Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law and personal advisor Jared Kushner, who took part in three rounds of indirect talks with Iranian negotiators before Trump and Israel launched the war against Iran on February 28. 

The White House has provided scant detail about the format of the talks - whether they will be direct or indirect - and has not provided specific expectations for the meeting. 

President Trump has tasked the member of his inner circle who has seemed to be the most reluctant defender of the war on Iran to now find a resolution and stave off the US president's astonishing threat to wipe out its "whole civilisation". Vance, who has long been skeptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended conflicts, to lead talks with Iran. "If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we're certainly willing to extend the open hand," Vance told reporters before boarding Air Force Two to make his way to the talks in Pakistan.

A fragile ceasefire under strain

The negotiations follow a tenuous truce announced earlier this week by Pakistan's prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who in a televised address to his nation on Friday, described the talks as a "make-or-break moment" for the two sides.

Yet divisions over the scope of the ceasefire threaten to undermine progress. Iran insists that Israeli military operations in Lebanon fall within the truce, while Israel and Washington have rejected that interpretation, continuing strikes against Hezbollah targets.

The dispute has already pushed the ceasefire to the brink. Iran's effective shuttering of the waterway has had a major impact on the US and global economies. In the United States, consumer prices rose 3.3 per cent in March from a year earlier, the Labour Department reported Friday. The largest monthly jump in gas prices in six decades spurred the sharp spike in inflation. Still, Trump expressed confidence in an exchange with reporters on Friday evening about the US position going into the talks. He predicted that the strait will soon be reopened "with or without" Tehran's cooperation.

It's the highest-stakes moment thus far for Vance, who spent much of last year as more of a background player in the Trump White House, especially as others like Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio took turns as ever-present advisers for the president. "I wished him luck. He's got a big thing," Trump said of his parting message to Vance before he began his journey to Islamabad. 

Vance's portfolio is fattening fast, first with a mission to root out fraud in government programmes at home and now to help solve a US war in the Middle East, where 'complicated' doesn't even begin to describe things. Vance, who served in the Iraq War while in the Marines and spent two years as a US senator for Ohio and a little more than one as vice president, has little diplomatic experience.

Rare diplomatic opening

Despite the tensions, the Islamabad meeting represents one of the most significant direct engagements between the two countries since the Iranian Revolution. The last comparable contact came in 2013, when Barack Obama spoke by phone with then Iranian president Hassan Rouhani.

With both sides publicly entrenched yet diplomatically engaged, the coming days in Islamabad will test whether mutual suspicion can give way to a workable agreement -- or whether the fragile ceasefire collapses under the weight of competing demands.