By Ariba Shahid, Asif Shahzad and Parisa Hafezi
ISLAMABAD, April 11 (Reuters) – U.S. and Iranian negotiators met on Saturday in Pakistan for their highest-level talks in half a century to try to end their war https://www.reuters.com/world/iran/ even as President Donald Trump said his military had sunk Tehran’s mine-layers and was clearing the Strait of Hormuz.
“We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favour to Countries all over the World,” Trump posted, adding that 28 Iranian mine-dropping vessels had been destroyed.
Iran’s state-affiliated Nournews called that “false news”.
Amid conflicting reports on what was happening, Iranian state TV added that no U.S. ships had crossed the strait, a crucial transit point for global energy supplies that Tehran has effectively blocked but Trump has vowed to reopen.
The status of the waterway, which lies on Iran’s southern coast, was one of the main points on the agenda in Islamabad for the first direct U.S.-Iranian talks in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Trump’s Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner flew in on Saturday and met Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi for two hours before a rest, according to a source from mediator Pakistan.
The Iranian delegation had arrived on Friday dressed in black in mourning for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the six-week war. They carried shoes and bags of some students killed during the U.S. bombing of a school nL6N400164 next to a military compound, the Iranian government said.
The war has sent global oil prices soaring, killed thousands of people and seen unprecedented hits on Gulf Arab states.
PROGRESS OF NEGOTIATIONS UNCLEAR
Amid conflicting versions from officials and media in both nations, the U.S. and Iranian sides appeared to remain far apart.
Before the talks began, a senior Iranian source told Reuters the U.S. had agreed to release frozen assets nL1N40U035 in Qatar and other foreign banks. But a U.S. official swiftly denied that.
As well as release of assets abroad, Tehran is demanding control of the Strait of Hormuz, payment of war reparations and a ceasefire across the region including in Lebanon, according to Iranian state TV and officials.
Trump’s stated goals have varied during the campaign, but as a minimum he wants free passage for global shipping through the strait and the crippling of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme to ensure it cannot produce an atomic bomb.
U.S. ally Israel, which joined the February 28 attacks on Iran that launched the war, has also been bombing Tehran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, killing nearly 2,000 people.
Israel and the U.S. have said Lebanon is not part of the Iran-U.S. ceasefire.
Mutual distrust is high.
“We will negotiate with our finger on the trigger,” Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on state TV.
“While we are open to talks, we are also fully aware of the lack of trust; therefore, Iran’s diplomatic team is entering this process with maximum caution.”
Tehran’s agenda nL6N40U01E includes aiming to collect transit fees nL1N40Q0L0 in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
The biggest ever disruption there has fed inflation nL1N40S16S and slowed the global economy, with an impact expected to last for months even if negotiators succeed in reopening the strait.
Nevertheless, three Liberian- and Chinese-flagged supertankers did pass through the strait on Saturday, shipping data showed, marking what appeared to be the first vessels to exit the Gulf nL1N40U04R since last week’s U.S.-Iran ceasefire.
STRIKES ON LEBANON
Strikes on southern Lebanon continued on Saturday morning, Lebanese state media said. Reuters reporters heard an Israeli surveillance drone flying over the capital Beirut from Friday night into the next morning and warplanes broke the sound barrier twice over the city.
Hezbollah announced it had conducted several military operations against Israeli positions on Saturday, both within Lebanese territory and in northern Israel.
Israeli and Lebanese officials plan talks in the U.S. on Tuesday.
For the U.S.-Iran talks, Islamabad, a city of just over 2 million people, was under unprecedented lockdown with thousands of paramilitary personnel and army troops on the streets.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is yet to be seen in public and is said by people close to his inner circle to be suffering from severe facial and leg injuries nL8N40S1LL sustained in the attack that killed his father.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Charlie Devereux and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by William Mallard and Gareth Jones)
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