Islamabad/Washington: While a team of US negotiators are expected to leave for Pakistan on Saturday, Iran has ruled out the possibility of any direct meeting with its leaders who are already present in Islamabad.
The White House has said that US president Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are due to depart for Pakistan on Saturday morning for talks with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi, as reported by Reuters.
Iran had a chance to make a “good deal” with America to end the Middle East crisis, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters.
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely,” he said. “All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways.”
The Iranian foreign minister reached Islamabad on Friday, but the country’s foreign ministry spokesperson posted on X that Iranian officials did not plan to meet with US representatives and that Tehran’s concerns would be conveyed to mediator Pakistan.
There has not been any response from the White House on this.
While the conflict has been suspended, the global energy crisis continues with Iran closing down the Strait of Hormuz. The US has also blocked Iran’s ports, cutting off the country’s oil exports and pushing up oil prices to multi-year highs, stoking inflation and darkening global growth prospects.
On Friday, Trump told Reuters that Iran planned to make an offer aimed at satisfying US demands but that he did not know what the offer entailed. He declined to say who Washington was negotiating with, “but we’re dealing with the people that are in charge now”.
The US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come this weekend, White House press secretary Karoline Leaving said, while the country’s vice president J D Vance was ready to travel to Pakistan as well.
Vance, Witkoff, Kushner and Araqchi, as well as the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, participated in talks in Islamabad two weeks ago, but the discussions remained inconclusive.
On Friday Araqchi met Pakistan’s foreign minister Ishaq Dar. The Iranian foreign minister will also visit Oman and Russia.
