Overview
- Senior delegations met face-to-face in Islamabad on Saturday in the first such US–Iran talks since 1979, with Vice President JD Vance meeting Iranian speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi under Pakistan’s mediation.
- The US military said it began clearing Iranian sea mines and that Navy ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz, while Iranian state media and a Pakistani source denied any US transit through the waterway.
- Iran said formal negotiations hinge on a Lebanon ceasefire and the release of frozen funds, and a Reuters-sourced claim of asset unfreezing was denied by a US official.
- Israeli strikes in Lebanon continued through the ceasefire, with authorities reporting a death toll above 2,000 and the UN warning that shelters and hospitals are overwhelmed as more than a million people flee their homes.
- Pakistan described the talks as moving in a positive, cordial direction after multiple rounds, with reopening the Strait of Hormuz—through which about one-fifth of seaborne oil normally flows—and constraints on Iran’s nuclear and missile work central to any deal.