Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad has maintained its security lockdown throughout the week in the hopes that U.S. and Iranian negotiators might return to resume the talks that broke down last weekend.
On Friday, President Donald Trump said his envoys are returning to Pakistan and Iran’s foreign minister appears to be en route, as well.
Islamabad’s lockdown has been close to the pandemic in its intensity, with shops closed, streets empty, and office staff working from home. Public unrest with the stringent security precautions is growing, especially among laborers who cannot earn wages or find lodgings.
“It is like we are living in a cage. We can’t go back to work. Many like me can’t afford to rent a flat, that’s why we live in hostels,” an Islamabad resident complained to the UK Guardian on Wednesday.
The lockdown was all the more difficult to accept because Pakistan’s economy was already suffering from the U.S.-Iran conflict, and it was not exactly thriving before that. A combination of surging population growth and poor economic planning took Pakistan from the jewel of South Asia to the poorest country in the region over the past half-century. Some of the locked-down laborers who spoke to the Guardian were worried about starving, not just missing paychecks.
On Friday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were preparing to depart for Islamabad to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
“We’re hopeful that it will be a productive conversation and hopefully move the ball forward to a deal,” she said.
Leavitt said Vice President JD Vance would not be involved in the negotiations at first, but remains “deeply involved” and is “on standby” to travel to Pakistan with Secretary of State Marco Rubio if developments are encouraging.
Araghchi said on Friday he was also heading for Pakistan and two Pakistani officials confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that he was expected to arrive with a “small government delegation.”
AFP’s sources spoke on condition of anonymity, and there was no immediate official announcement about a new round of U.S.-Iran talks from the Pakistani government.
Araghchi said he discussed “regional developments and issues related to the ceasefire” in a phone call with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Field Marshal Asim Munir, the powerful military leader who has been a driving force behind the negotiations, thanks to his regional political influence and good relations with President Trump.
Dar reportedly “underscored the importance of sustained dialogue and engagement to address outstanding issues, in order to advance regional peace and stability at the earliest” in his conversation with Araghchi, but it remained unclear whether the Iranian foreign minister plans to meet directly with U.S. representatives when he arrives in Islamabad, or how long he plans to stay. His itinerary reportedly also includes stops in Oman and Russia.
Iranian state media said on Friday there were “currently no negotiations with the U.S. on the agenda” for Araghchi’s trip to Pakistan, and he intends only to consult with Pakistani officials.
Pakistan on Thursday welcomed President Trump’s decision to extend the current ceasefire to allow more time for negotiations. On Friday, Trump also issued a 90-day extensions to a waiver he issued in March that allows foreign ships to transport oil and gas to the United States, easing the pressure on domestic energy markets from the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Trump Administration has taken several actions to mitigate short-term disruptions to the energy markets, and this extension will help ensure vital energy products, industrial materials, and agricultural necessities are maintained,” said assistant White House press secretary Taylor Rogers.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at a press briefing on Friday that Operation Epic Fury “has delivered a decisive military result in just weeks,” and was a “gift to the world, historic, courtesy of a bold and historic president.”
“That mission continues today in this new phase as Iran has an important choice, a chance to make a deal, a good deal, a wise deal,” he said.
Hegseth said the “ironclad” U.S. blockade of Iran “grows more powerful by the day” and is expanding further from Iran’s waters, with a second U.S. aircraft carrier scheduled to join the effort “in just a few days.”
“Just this week, we seized two Iranian dark fleet ships in the Indo-Pacific region that had left Iranian ports before the blockade went into effect. They thought they’d made it out just in time. They did not,” he noted.
“No one sails from the Strait of Hormuz to anywhere in the world without the permission of the United States Navy. To the regime in Tehran, the blockade is tightening by the hour. We are in control, nothing in, nothing out. Iran’s battered military, the IRGC specifically, has been reduced to a gang of pirates with a flag,” he said.
Hegseth said Iran “has a historic chance to make a serious deal, and the ball is in their court.”
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely, as we said previously, choose wisely at the negotiating table. All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon, and in meaningful and verifiable ways,” he said.
“Or instead, they can watch their regime’s fragile economic state collapse under the unrelenting pressure of American power,” he threatened.
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