Summary

Pakistan eyes narrow window to resuscitate US-Iran talks after breakdown US and Iran end marathon Islamabad talks without agreement, leaving fragile ceasefire under growing strain. Islamabad, Pakistan – More than 12 hours of face-to-face negotiations between the United States and Iran ended without agreement in Islamabad on Sunday, leaving a fragile two-week ceasefire as the only barrier between diplomacy and a return to war. Pakistan, which spent weeks positioning itself as a mediator and succeeded in bringing both sides into the same room, emerged with its role intact. But officials acknowledge the harder phase now begins — getting American and Iranian negotiators back into talks before their differences explode into full-fledged war again. Recommended Storieslist of 4 items - list 1 of 4US and Iran fail to reach a deal after marathon talks in Pakistan - list 2 of 4Iranian authorities remain defiant, urge supporters to stay in streets - list 3 of 4Pakistan sets modest goal for US-Iran summit: A deal to keep talks going - list 4 of 4How Pakistan managed to get the US and Iran to a ceasefire “Pakistan has been and will continue to play its role to facilitate engagements and dialogue between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America in the days to come,” Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in a statement after the conclusion of the talks. The talks, the highest-level direct engagement between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, faltered over differences surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme. “The simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” said US Vice President JD Vance, who led the American delegation alongside special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. However, Vance left a narrow opening for the resumption of talks. “We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” Vance said, tapping the podium for emphasis, before ending his brief remarks, which lasted for less than five minutes. Pakistani and Iranian sources confirmed that the Iranian delegation met senior Pakistani officials later on Sunday before departing for Tehran, though details of those discussions remain unclear. What is clear is that Pakistan isn’t giving up yet. Washington’s red lines US officials said that Iran had entered negotiations misreading its leverage, believing it held advantages that, in Washington’s assessment, it did not. According to these officials, Vance spent much of his time during the talks correcting what they described as Iranian misperceptions about the US position — asserting that no deal would be possible without a full commitment on the nuclear issue. Officials also suggested that Trump’s subsequent announcement of a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz was not an impulsive reaction, but a pre-planned step aimed at removing the waterway as an Iranian bargaining tool and forcing the nuclear issue back to the centre of any future talks. But the US officials, speaking on background, also acknowledged that the gulf in the positions between Washington and Tehran that they failed to bridge extended to issues beyond Iran’s nuclear programme. In essence, they said, the two sides failed to agree on six key points: ending all uranium enrichment; dismantling major enrichment facilities; removing Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium; accepting a broader regional security framework involving US allies; ending funding for groups Washington designates as “terrorist” organisations, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis; and fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz without tolls. Hours after the talks ended, Trump acknowledged partial progress, but underscored the central impasse. “The meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said. “Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION.” Iran has effectively controlled access to the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of global oil supplies pass, since the US-Israeli attacks began on February 28. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has imposed what analysts describe as a de facto toll system, requiring vessels to secure clearance codes and transit under escort through a controlled corridor. The disruption has pushed oil prices above $100 per barrel at times, unsettling global markets and placing sustained pressure on energy-importing countries across Asia and Europe. Tehran has framed its control of the strait as both a security measure and a key negotiating lever, one it has shown little willingness to relinquish without a broader settlement. Tehran’s point of view Iran’s account of the breakdown differed sharply. In a post on X early on April 13, after returning to Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country had engaged in “good faith”, only to face shifting demands. “When just inches away from an Islamabad MoU, we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade,” he wrote. “Zero lessons learned. Good will begets good will. Enmity begets enmity.” The reference to an “Islamabad MoU”, a memorandum of understanding, was the clearest public signal yet that the two sides had come closer to a formal agreement than either government had previously acknowledged. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the country’s delegation, said his team had proposed “forward-looking initiatives”, but failed to secure trust. “Due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” he wrote on Sunday. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei also pointed to partial progress but unresolved differences. “On some issues we actually reached mutual understanding, but there was a gap over two or three important issues and ultimately the talks didn’t result in an agreement,” he said. Tehran’s key demands, including an end to Israeli strikes on Lebanon, the release of $6bn in frozen assets, guarantees on its nuclear programme and the right to charge vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, remained unmet. Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, however, offered a more measured view — suggesting that Tehran was not closing the window on talks. “The Islamabad Talks is not an event but a process,” he wrote in his message on X on Sunday. “The Islamabad Talks laid the foundation for a diplomatic process that, if trust and will are strengthened, can create a sustainable framework for the interests of all parties.” Pakistan’s balancing act For Pakistan, analysts say, the outcome represents a setback but not a failure. Officials were careful to describe the talks as “an important opening step in a continuing diplomatic process”, stressing that issues of such complexity cannot be resolved in a single round. The emphasis, they said, was on keeping the channel open. Muhammad Obaidullah, a former Pakistan Navy commodore who has served in Iran as a diplomat, said expectations of a breakthrough were always unrealistic. “The mere fact of bringing both parties face to face is a significant diplomatic achievement in itself,” he told Al Jazeera. “The diplomacy is not dead.” Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor emeritus of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, went further. “The talks did not collapse; they concluded without agreement but with a defined US offer on the table and the channel still intact,” he said. “Pakistan’s role was to move the crisis from escalation to structured engagement, which it achieved. The absence of convergence reflects structural differences between the US and Iran, not a failure of mediation.” Both Trump and Iranian officials have praised Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir for their efforts to secure the ceasefire, and for hosting the talks in Islamabad. That, say analysts, suggests that they remain open to further Pakistan-brokered negotiations. Sahar Baloch, a Germany-based scholar of Iran, said that trust remains Pakistan’s most valuable asset. “The real test of credibility is not preventing breakdowns, but remaining relevant after them,” she said. Fragile ceasefire The immediate threat to Pakistan’s role comes from the evolving situation in the Strait of Hormuz and in Lebanon. Iran has already warned that continued Israeli strikes on Lebanon could render negotiations meaningless. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has framed such attacks as a direct challenge to the ceasefire. Trump’s blockade announcement now adds pressure from a second front. Ahmad, a former Pakistan chair at Oxford University, warned that a collapse of the truce would sharply narrow diplomatic options. “If the ceasefire collapses, the immediate consequence is the loss of the diplomatic window,” he said. “A second round becomes far more difficult because both sides would return to negotiating under active escalation, where positions tend to harden rather than converge.” Obaidullah drew a historical parallel with the US naval quarantine of Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis. What if China were to use its own ships to import Iranian oil? Would the US attack them? “The world will again be watching who blinks first,” Obaidullah said. “However, it may turn into a far greater conflict if neither side does.” The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war, after Washington discovered Moscow had installed nuclear missiles on Cuban soil, within striking distance of the American mainland. The US blocked the Soviets from providing more equipment to Cuba, and eventually, a diplomatic settlement was reached, with the Soviets agreeing to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a US pledge not to invade Cuba. Baloch, the Berlin-based scholar, agreed that the situation remains volatile. “The ceasefire risks becoming more symbolic than substantive,” she said. “But paradoxically, escalation can sometimes force a return to talks, even if under more urgent and less favourable conditions.” What is the road ahead? Pakistan’s room for manoeuvring is also shaped by its economic fragility. The disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has driven up energy prices, compounding pressures on an economy already under strain before the conflict. Ahmad said this creates both urgency and limits. “Economic exposure, especially to energy shocks and external financing, creates urgency for Pakistan to prevent a prolonged conflict,” he said. “But it also reinforces a constraint: Pakistan cannot afford escalation with either side. Its leverage is not coercive; it is positional. It comes from being the only channel acceptable to both sides, not from the ability to impose outcomes,” Ahmad said. Eight days remain until the end of the initial two-week truce, a window Pakistani officials said privately represents a genuine opportunity for further technical and political alignment, if both sides choose to use it. Ahmad suggested that any breakthrough would depend on creating a sequence of steps acceptable to both sides. “The US is asking for early nuclear commitments; Iran is asking for guarantees and relief first,” he said. Pakistan’s role, he added, would be to help “structure this sequencing, keep both sides engaged, and prevent breakdown at each stage”. Islamabad won’t be the one drafting a deal itself, he emphasised, noting, “At this point, maintaining the channel is as important as the substance of the deal itself.”