US and Iran hold direct talks in Pakistan to end war
Senior US and Iranian officials met on Saturday in the Pakistani capital for the highest-level talks between Washington and Tehran in 50 years, as they sought to bring an end to the six-week war.
The two-hour meeting brought together US Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, alongside Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Pakistan's army chief was also present.
The negotiations - the first since the 1979 Islamic Revolution - began behind closed doors before the delegations broke for a pause.
As the talks progressed, conflicting accounts emerged about what had been agreed.
A US official told Axios that several US Navy ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, whose blockade by Iran has caused the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies. But Iranian state TV and a Pakistani source denied that any US vessel had passed through the waterway.
"We're now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz," US President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post, adding that all 28 of Iran’s mine-laying vessels had been sunk.
Earlier, a senior Iranian source had told Reuters the US had agreed to release frozen assets held in Qatar and other foreign banks, which was denied by a US official.
The direct negotiations were preceded by a morning of shuttle diplomacy led by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, during which Tehran set out the red lines it said Washington would need to accept before a face-to-face meeting could proceed.
According to Iranian state television, the conditions included the status of the Strait of Hormuz, the unfreezing of Iran’s blocked assets, the payment of war reparations and a region-wide ceasefire.
Tehran is pressing for a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, where Israeli strikes have continued despite the US-Iran ceasefire, killing more than 350 people on Wednesday alone.
Israel has killed nearly 2,000 people since fighting erupted in March.
Israel and the US have maintained that the military campaign in Lebanon falls outside the scope of any Iran-US ceasefire.
Tehran’s delegation is expected to continue raising Israeli ceasefire violations in Lebanon during the talks.
Israeli strikes on more than a dozen locations in southern Lebanon continued on Saturday, killing 10 people, including a member of the Lebanese civil defence and two paramedics.
Hezbollah said it had carried out several military operations against Israeli positions, both within Lebanese territory and in northern Israel.
Israeli and Lebanese officials are due to hold talks in Washington on Tuesday, both sides said, amid conflicting accounts on what the discussions will cover.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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