Iran delegation lands in Islamabad, warns talks cannot begin without US concessions | Video

US-Iran Talks: Pakistan hosts history-laden talks as both sides arrive armed with demands they know the other cannot easily accept.

US-Iran Talks: Senior delegations from Iran and the United States converged on Islamabad on Friday for what is set to be the highest-level direct encounter between the two countries since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, a meeting that carries the weight of nearly five decades of hostility, proxy conflict, and mutual suspicion.

Pakistan, positioning itself as a credible neutral host, received the Iranian party first. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf led the delegation, which reads more like a cabinet reshuffle than a diplomatic travel party. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Defence Council Secretary Ali Akbar Ahmadian, Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati, former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, and some sitting parliamentarians all made the trip. This composition tells its own story about how seriously Tehran is treating the occasion.

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Islamabad's Foreign Ministry confirmed the arrival and said it hoped all parties would "engage constructively." It was the sort of careful, diplomatic language that betrayed just how delicate the ground beneath these talks truly is.

The American delegation followed shortly after, led by an unusual trio. Vice President JD Vance heads the team, flanked by special envoy Steve Witkoff and presidential adviser Jared Kushner. Before boarding his flight, Vance acknowledged the difficulty ahead. Washington was, he said, "extending the open hand", yet two White House officials, speaking anonymously to Reuters, painted a rather less generous picture of the mood inside the administration. President Trump, they said, has privately concluded that the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes, is unlikely to reopen quickly, regardless of what happens this weekend.

The Iranian side views Witkoff and Kushner with particular wariness. Both men played central roles in earlier Oman-mediated discussions that preceded the American and Israeli bombing campaign, which killed several senior Iranian figures, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Vance brings a different kind of baggage, thin foreign policy experience and a well-documented scepticism of American involvement abroad. Together, they make for an unlikely diplomatic vanguard at a genuinely historic moment.

Iran has not arrived in Islamabad simply to talk. Qalibaf and Araghchi stated plainly before leaving Tehran that formal negotiations cannot begin until Washington accepts a set of preconditions. Chief among them: any ceasefire arrangement must extend to Lebanon, where Israel has been engaged in sustained strikes against Hezbollah, Iran's closest regional ally. Tehran also wants Iranian assets, frozen under years of American sanctions, to be released before discussions go any further.

The Lebanese demand has already caused a fracture in the fragile pre-talks architecture. Israel initially rejected any suggestion that a ceasefire would apply to its operations there, and on Wednesday launched a fresh offensive that killed more than 250 people. The situation shifted, at least partially, after Trump telephoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and pressed him to pull back. Netanyahu subsequently agreed to separate US-mediated talks in Washington next week, though whether that concession is enough to satisfy Tehran remains an open question.

Even setting the preconditions aside, the negotiating documents themselves expose a chasm between the two sides. Trump has said Tehran's 10-point proposal will serve as the basis for Saturday's session. Yet placed alongside Washington's earlier 15-point framework, the two texts share remarkably little territory.

Iran wants sanctions lifted, the sweeping economic restrictions that have strangled its trade, frozen its currency and isolated its banking system for years. It is also seeking formal recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, including the right to regulate the passage of vessels and levy transit fees. That last demand, if accepted, would fundamentally redraw the map of regional power.

Washington's wish-list runs in the opposite direction entirely. The American delegation intends to press Iran to hand over its stockpiles of enriched uranium, cease all further enrichment, dismantle its ballistic missile programme, and sever financial and military ties with proxy forces across the Middle East. On top of that, the team is expected to raise the cases of American citizens currently held in Iranian detention.

Diplomats and analysts have noted that whatever emerges from these talks, a breakthrough, a stalemate, or something murkier in between, the meeting itself is a moment of consequence. Iran and America have not sat across a table at this level since the Shah fell and the hostage crisis began. Generations of officials on both sides have grown up in a world where such a conversation was simply not possible.

Whether Islamabad marks the beginning of something new, or merely a pause in a conflict neither side has fully resolved, will likely take weeks, if not months, to become clear. For now, the delegations are in the same city, in the same building, and at least nominally prepared to listen.

That, by the standards of the past 46 years, is already something.