Tensions rise ahead of US-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan

Saturday April 11, 2026

Police officers walk towards bus for their deployment in Islamabad, Pakistan before planned US-Iran ceasefire talks [File: Anjum Naveed/The Associated Press]

With negotiators already on the move, the next round of US-Iran ceasefire talks has been plunged into fresh uncertainty. The United States delegation has left for Saturday’s planned discussions in Islamabad, Pakistan, while Iran’s government says its representatives have already landed.

Yet even before the two sides sit down, Friday brought a new burst of friction that cast a shadow over the talks, which had already been burdened by mutual suspicion.

The ceasefire announced on Tuesday briefly halted the US and Israel war against Iran. But since then, the two sides have clashed over the meaning of the 10-point Iranian proposal meant to freeze the fighting.

Each side has described the agreement differently, despite saying it had been accepted. A central dispute is whether the ceasefire also covers Israel’s invasion and continuing offensive in Lebanon.

On Friday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf suggested the disagreement could stop the negotiations before they get underway.

“Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said in a post on the social media platform X.

“These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin.”

Ghalibaf is among the Iranian officials expected in Pakistan, along with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Within hours of his post on Friday, Iranian state media said the delegation had arrived in Pakistan and that talks would start only if Washington accepted Tehran’s “preconditions”.

At the same time, Iran’s military joint command warned it had its “fingers on the trigger” because of repeated “breaches of trust” by the US and Israel.

Trump, meanwhile, sharpened his rhetoric. In comments to the New York Post, he renewed threats against Iran, saying, “We’re loading up the ships with the best weapons ever made, even at a higher level than we used to do a complete decimation.”

“And if we don’t have a deal, we will be using them, and we will be using them very effectively,” he added.

He later took to Truth Social with two posts that signalled a hard-line stance heading into the talks.

“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” he wrote, referring to Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.

“The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”

Fighting in Lebanon continues

The Trump administration has portrayed Tuesday’s ceasefire as a step that prevented a much larger American escalation in the conflict.

Just hours before the deal was announced, the US president had warned that “whole civilization will die tonight”.

Even so, the administration has still not released a clear account of the original framework it says it accepted with Iran, while insisting it differs from the 10-point plan published by Tehran.

Analysts say there remain major gaps between Washington and Tehran on the Strait of Hormuz, frozen Iranian assets, the future of Iran’s nuclear programme and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

The US and Israel maintain that a Lebanon ceasefire was never included in the deal, directly contradicting the positions taken by Iran and Pakistan.

Still, Washington has indicated Israel could reduce the intensity of its campaign. On Thursday, Trump told an Israeli reporter that he had urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make Israeli military operations against Hezbollah more “low-key” ahead of the ceasefire talks.

His remarks came after Israeli strikes killed at least 300 people across Lebanon on Wednesday, one of the deadliest days of the offensive.

Despite that, attacks continued on Friday. Reporting from the city of Tyre, Al Jazeera correspondent Obaida Hitto said there was “no sign of any dialback or slowdown here in southern Lebanon”.

Kuwait, meanwhile, said it had “dealt with” seven drones fired from Iran into its airspace over the previous 24 hours.

Vance predicts ‘positive’ outcome from talks

Even with the latest threats hanging over the process, US Vice President JD Vance said he expected “positive” results from the negotiations as he left for Pakistan on Friday morning.

Vance is leading the US delegation and said he had received “pretty clear guidelines” from Trump.

“If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we are certainly willing to extend an open hand, that’s one thing,” he said.

“If they’re going to try to play us, they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”

Vance, viewed as part of the non-interventionist wing of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement, was chosen to head the delegation amid Iranian distrust of US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Witkoff and Kushner had previously led two rounds of indirect negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The first round collapsed after Israel launched a 12-day war on Iran in June 2025, which ended with the US striking three of Iran’s key nuclear sites.

The second round fell apart when the US and Israel launched the latest war on February 28.