ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Iran’s foreign minister left Pakistan on Saturday evening, two Pakistani officials told the Associated Press, before any sign that U.S. envoys had even arrived for indirect talks on the fragile ceasefire.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was seen off at an airport, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. He had met with Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif about what he called Iran’s red lines for negotiations and said Tehran would engage with Pakistan’s mediation efforts “until a result is achieved.”
It is unclear when President Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, expected to lead a U.S. negotiation team, were due to arrive in Islamabad or if they have even left Washington. The White House declined to comment on Saturday.
An open-ended ceasefire has paused most fighting, but the economic fallout grows with global shipments of oil, liquefied natural gas, fertilizer and other supplies disrupted by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Also Saturday, Iran resumed commercial flights from Tehran’s international airport for the first time since the war began with U.S. and Israeli strikes two months ago. Flights were scheduled to depart for Istanbul, Oman’s capital of Muscat and the Saudi city of Medina, according to Iran’s state-run television. Iran partly reopened its airspace earlier this month due to the ceasefire.
Iran has said talks will be indirect
Islamabad was in near-lockdown ahead of the expected talks. Residents struggled to commute even short distances due to checkpoints, road closures and diversions. Usually busy arteries leading to the airport and heavily fortified Red Zone were largely deserted. Security forces were stationed at key intersections. Helicopters circled overhead.
Pakistan has been trying to get U.S. and Iran back to the table since Trump this week announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire, honoring Islamabad’s request for more diplomatic outreach.
The White House on Friday said Trump was sending Witkoff and Kushner to meet with Araghchi. But Iran’s Foreign Ministry said any talks would be indirect and Pakistani officials would convey messages.
The first round of talks in Pakistan, led on the U.S. side by Vice President JD Vance, lasted more than 20 hours and were face-to-face, the highest-level direct talks between the longtime adversaries since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Iranian officials have openly asked how they can trust the U.S. after talks last year and early this year over Tehran’s nuclear program ended with it being attacked by the U.S. and Israel.
Araghchi and Trump’s envoys held hours of indirect talks in Geneva on Feb. 27 but walked away without a deal. The next day, Israel and the United States started the war.
The standoff over the strait continues
The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, is still nearly 50% higher than when the war began because of Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes in peacetime.
Iran attacked three ships this week, while the U.S. maintains a blockade on Iranian ports. Trump has ordered the military to “shoot and kill” small boats that could be placing mines.
Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Saturday his country is sending minesweeper ships to the Mediterranean to help remove Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz once hostilities end.
The squeeze on shipments through the strait has rippled through global maritime trade, including through the Panama Canal nearly halfway around the world.
A growing toll even as ceasefires hold
Since the war began, authorities say at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran and more than 2,490 people in Lebanon, where new fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah broke out two days after the Iran war started.
Additionally, 23 people have been killed in Israel and more than a dozen in gulf Arab states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, 13 U.S. service members in the region and six members of the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon have been killed.
Trump announced Thursday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah by three weeks. Hezbollah has not participated in the Washington-brokered diplomacy.
Ahmed, Magdy and Gambrell write for the Associated Press. Ahmed and Magdy reported from Islamabad and Gambrell from Dubai. AP writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.
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