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U.S. Vice President JD Vance departed for Pakistan to hold high-level talks with Iranian officials as a ceasefire in the Iran war remained fragile and fighting continued involving Israel and Hezbollah, according to the Associated Press. Vance was on Air Force Two on Friday, headed to Islamabad for negotiations expected to be held Saturday.
Iranian participation in the talks appeared to move forward after an Iranian delegation led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf arrived in Islamabad, Iranian state television reported. The delegation included security, political, military, economic and legal teams, and the report said negotiations would begin only if the other side accepted Iran’s preconditions.
Those preconditions were also framed publicly by Iranian officials in separate statements. Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to the Revolutionary Guard, said the talks set for Saturday would not proceed unless Israel stopped its attacks in Lebanon. Earlier, Qalibaf posted on social media that two points he said had been mutually agreed—ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of blocked Iranian assets—had not yet been implemented, saying “These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin,” according to the AP report.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, portrayed the negotiating balance as tilted away from Iran. He posted on social media that Iran “has no leverage except to restrict ship traffic in the strait,” and he tied that claim to the Strait of Hormuz, through which he said 20% of the world’s traded oil once passed, the AP reported. Trump added, in a separate post, that “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” and that “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
The talks also unfolded amid heightened security in Pakistan. In Islamabad, security forces locked down key parts of the capital and erected barricades along routes from the airport to the city, as Vance’s travel and preparations continued.
At the same time, the AP report said negotiations involving Israel and Lebanon were expected to begin Tuesday in Washington. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s office said Friday that the two sides were set to negotiate after Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors to the U.S. held a call with Washington’s ambassador to Lebanon to discuss terms, and that the U.S. State Department will mediate. The report said Beirut wants direct talks to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah, under a ceasefire similar to the one with Iran.
The AP report also described Hezbollah’s response as cautious but concerned about what it viewed as concessions. In a first statement since Israel announced direct negotiations with Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Naim Kassem urged Lebanese officials to stop offering “free concessions,” while not taking a clear stance on the talks.
Israel and Hezbollah continued to exchange fire during the diplomatic push. The AP said that after the truce was announced, Israel struck Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, calling it the deadliest day in the country since the war began Feb. 28. The AP also said that on Friday, Israeli warplanes struck near a state security office in the southern town of Nabatieh, killing 13 officers according to Aoun’s office, and that Israeli forces said they also hit about 10 rocket launchers in Lebanon that had fired toward northern Israel.
The report further said that Israel’s insistence that the ceasefire in Iran does not include a pause in fighting with Hezbollah threatened to sink the broader deal. Hezbollah joined the war in support of Iran, and the AP said Israel and Iran’s negotiations were expected to range across issues that could derail a longer, permanent end to the fighting.
The Strait of Hormuz remained a sticking point in the wider contest as Iran maintained control of the waterway, with the AP reporting that oil prices jumped and markets were roiled by the disruption. The AP said the spot price of Brent crude was around $97 on Friday, up more than 30% since the war started, and that before the conflict more than 100 ships passed through the strait each day, compared with only 12 recorded passing through after the ceasefire went into effect.
Questions also persisted about Iran’s missile and nuclear programs, which the U.S. and Israel sought to eliminate in starting the war. The AP said the U.S. insists Iran must never be able to build nuclear weapons and wants to remove Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which Iran says is peaceful. It also said Trump has said the U.S. would work with Iran to remove the uranium, though Tehran had not confirmed that.
In the broader death and displacement picture reported by the AP, Iran had not provided any definitive death toll, but the report cited a top Iranian officer telling a state-run Iranian newspaper that more than 3,000 people had been killed. In Lebanon, the AP said at least 1,953 people have been killed and 1 million have been displaced, while it said more than a dozen people died in Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, and 23 civilians were killed in Israel. The AP also said 13 U.S. service members had been killed.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also addressed the war’s broader technology footprint, telling the AP that Ukrainian forces shot down Iranian-designed Shahed drones in several Middle Eastern countries, with missions carried out using domestically produced interceptor drones as part of efforts to help partners counter the same weapons Russia uses in Ukraine, the AP report said.