Negotiators from the United States and Iran are set to meet in Islamabad this weekend for talks aimed at turning their current ceasefire into a durable peace.
The truce, announced Tuesday, has been shaky. Israel launched an aerial barrage against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remains snarled. But after nearly six weeks of war, both Washington and Tehran appear motivated to end the conflict, raising hopes that the talks Saturday, to be led by Vice President JD Vance and senior Iranian officials Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, might produce a deal.
While much about the U.S. and Iranian positions is unknown, the information that’s publicly available suggests the sides are far apart on key issues including the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran has published a 10-point plan to end the war. Some of the demands — such as the closure of all U.S. military bases in the Middle East — are likely nonstarters for the United States. But President Donald Trump has called the outline “a workable basis on which to negotiate.”
The Trump administration says it sent a 15-point plan to Tehran last month. It hasn’t been made public, but officials speaking on the condition of anonymity havedetailed the points to The Washington Post. The plan offers extensive sanctions relief in return for the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran and strict limits to its nuclear and missile programs, among other provisions.
Fighting in Lebanon
Israel’s continued airstrikes on Lebanon have appeared to pose the greatest threat to the ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced talks with Lebanon in Washington next week but says attacks against Hezbollah will continue.
Netanyahu has claimed that Lebanon was not included in the ceasefire; Iran insists it was. When the ceasefire was announced, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said it would include Lebanon.
Iran, the U.S. and their allies “have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY,” Sharif wrote on X on Tuesday. When Israel struck what it said were Hezbollah positions in Beirut and southern Lebanon, killing at least 182 people, authorities there said, Iranian diplomats threatened to withdraw from this weekend’s negotiations. The announcement that Israel and Lebanon would hold direct talks for the first time appears to have been the gesture that kept diplomacy on track.
Vance, asked about the dispute Wednesday, said there was “a lot of bad-faith propaganda going on.”
“I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding,” he said. “I think the Iranians thought the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
Strait of Hormuz
Another critical issue is Iran’s newly won control of the Strait of Hormuz, the maritime chokepoint between Oman and Iran through which a third of the world’s crude oil passed last year.
Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, ships of all nations are guaranteed transit passage through the 21-mile strait. But after U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran on Feb. 28, Tehran laid mines and began attacking tankers in the passage, effectively shutting it down.
As the conflict ground on, Iran allowed some ships to pass if they coordinated with the Iranian military and paid a fee. Now it wants to make the setup permanent, charging tolls to transit. At one point this week, Trump mused about going into business with Tehran.
“We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture,” he told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl. “It’s a way of securing it — also securing it from lots of other people.”
Such an arrangement would violate international maritime law and antagonize Iran’s neighbors, whose economies depend on their ability to export oil and gas to the world.
Nuclear program
Iran’s nuclear capabilities were one of the Trump administration’s central justifications for going to war. Intelligence analysts believe U.S.-Israeli strikes last year and the current war have largely destroyed the country’s nuclear facilities, but Tehran retains the knowledge to reconstitute its nuclear program and 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium.
The U.S. delegation to the talks is expected to discuss new limits on the program and what to do with the nuclear material. It’s not yet clear whether Tehran will be more willing to compromise now than in talks before the conflict. Publicly, Iranian leaders have continued to insist on a right to enrich uranium.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the administration was considering a few approaches but suggested the material would not stay inside Iran.
“Right now, it’s buried, and we’re watching it,” Hegseth told reporters Wednesday. Iran can either “give it to us voluntarily,” he said, or U.S. forces would remove it. “If we have to do something else ourselves, like we did Midnight Hammer or something like that, we reserve that opportunity.” Operation Midnight Hammer was the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran’s Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear facilities.
Moving Iran’s enriched uranium outside the country was raised during previous talks. One idea discussed was that Iran would hand the material over to its ally Russia, which would then dilute it.
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