By Saad Sayeed and Ariba Shahid
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) – Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was expected in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Friday to discuss proposals for restarting peace talks with the United States, but Pakistani sources said he was not due to meet U.S. negotiators there.
U.S. President Donald Trump plans to send special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to talks with Araqchi in Islamabad, and the pair will depart on Saturday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
The U.S. has seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hopes more will be made in weekend talks, Leavitt said.
She added that U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who earlier this month led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran to end their war, is ready to travel to Pakistan to join the negotiations if they prove successful.
Islamabad was the venue for the U.S.-Iran talks that collapsed earlier this week.
Araqchi wrote on X that he was visiting Pakistan, Oman and Russia to coordinate with partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments, adding that Iran’s neighbours remained Tehran’s priority.
The tour will include consultations on the latest efforts to end the war, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson later told state media.
Two Pakistani government sources aware of the discussions said Araqchi’s visit would be a brief one to discuss Iran’s proposals for talks with the U.S., which mediator Pakistan would then convey to Washington.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a briefing earlier on Friday that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal” with the United States.
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely … at the negotiating table. All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways,” he said.
Reports on Araqchi’s trip in Iranian state media and the Pakistani sources made no mention of Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at the talks earlier this month.
The Iranian parliament’s media office denied a report that Qalibaf had resigned as head of Iran’s negotiating team, and added that there was no new round of talks scheduled yet.
Pakistani sources said earlier that a U.S. logistics and security team was already in place in Islamabad for potential talks.
The last round of peace talks had been expected to resume on Tuesday but never took place, with Iran saying it was not yet ready to commit to attending and a U.S. delegation led by Vance never leaving Washington.
Trump unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday at the 11th hour to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators.
Oil prices remained volatile on Friday, as traders weighed potential disruption from the worst oil shock in history amid the prospect for further talks.
Brent crude futures were down 0.9% at $104.11 while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 2.8% to $93.20.
HEZBOLLAH DISMISSES LEBANON CEASEFIRE EXTENSION
On Thursday, Israel and Lebanon extended a separate ceasefire for three weeks at a meeting at the White House brokered by Trump.
The war in Lebanon, which Israel invaded last month to root out Iran’s Hezbollah allies after the militant group fired across the border, has run in parallel with the wider Iran war, and Tehran says a ceasefire there is a precondition for talks.
There was little sign of an end to the fighting in southern Lebanon, however, as Lebanese authorities reported two people were killed by an Israeli strike and Hezbollah downed an Israeli drone.
While the ceasefire that came into force on April 16 has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Responding to the extension, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said, “it is essential to point out that the ceasefire is meaningless in light of Israel’s insistence on hostile acts, including assassinations, shelling, and gunfire” and its demolition of villages and towns in the south.
Israel’s military said it had killed six armed Hezbollah members in southern Lebanon on Friday.
STRAIT OF HORMUZ BLOCKADE
Trump said on Thursday he was in no rush to reach an agreement with Iran and wanted it to be “everlasting,” while asserting the U.S. had an upper hand in a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy shipping route.
The U.S. has yet to find a way to open the strait, where Iran has blocked nearly all ships apart from its own since the start of the war eight weeks ago. Iran showed off its control this week by seizing two huge cargo vessels there.
Trump imposed a separate blockade of Iranian shipping last week. Iran says it will not reopen the strait until Trump lifts his blockade.
Only five ships crossed the strait in the last 24 hours, shipping data showed on Friday, compared to around 130 a day before the war. Those included one Iranian oil products tanker, but none of the vast crude-carrying supertankers that normally feed global energy markets.
Container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd also said one of its ships had crossed the strait, without giving details.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus, Steve Holland, Ryan Patrick Jones and Bhargav AcharyaWriting by Alex Richardson and Sharon SingletonEditing by Peter Graff, Hugh Lawson and Paul Simao)
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