Pakistan was racing against time and the odds to try to convince Tehran to join talks with the US aimed at ending their war, now in its eighth week.
But while Pakistani officials close to the mediation efforts remain cautiously hopeful that Iran might send a negotiating team for the talks by Wednesday, a series of escalatory steps taken by the US over the past 48 hours had by Tuesday evening injected a dose of scepticism into Islamabad’s peacemaking efforts.
Iran continues to publicly insist that it has no plans to return to the negotiating table, even as Pakistan and other mediators work behind the scenes to bring Tehran back into the room before a two-week ceasefire expires on Wednesday evening US time — early Thursday morning in the Middle East.
At least nine US aircraft have landed in Pakistan over the past three days, bringing personnel and equipment to be used by the Vance-led negotiating team.
Vance was expected to depart from the US on Tuesday evening Pakistan time — morning in the US — and arrive in Islamabad late morning on Wednesday. US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to join Vance. The three officials had led the US delegation during the first round of direct talks with Iran in Islamabad on April 11.
But it is unclear who they are coming to meet.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, posted on social media, paraphrasing Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, that it was “a truth universally acknowledged” that “a single country in possession of a large civilisation will not negotiate under threat and force”, calling it “a substantial, Islamic and theological principle”.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said it had no plans to re-engage diplomatically with Washington for now.
Credit: aljazeera.com
