Published On 11 Apr 202611 Apr 2026|Updated: 3 minutes agoUpdated: 3 minutes agoThe United States and Iran are holding in-person talks in Pakistan to end their six-week-old war, days after a fragile ceasefire was agreed.Face-to-face discussions between the two sides began in Islamabad on Saturday afternoon, the White House confirmed, following earlier bilateral meetings each side held separately with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listIranian state media reported that three-party talks had begun after Iranian preconditions, including a reduction in Israeli attacks on Lebanon, were met.Al Jazeera’s Abid Hussain, reporting from Islamabad, said the talks were initially meant to be “proximate talks”, but “our sources close to the mediation say the two teams are [now] involved in direct negotiations, with the Pakistani mediators also present” in the room.The US delegation is led by US Vice President JD Vance and includes special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.Iran’s delegation of more than 70 people is being led by parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.Vance and Ghalibaf met separately with Pakistan’s Sharif earlier on Saturday, with Sharif’s office saying Islamabad looked forward to continuing its facilitation of both sides.“The Prime Minister expressed the hope that these talks would serve as a stepping stone toward durable peace in the region,” Sharif’s office said in a statement.The negotiations proceeded despite earlier assertions from Tehran that they would not take place without commitments on Lebanon’s inclusion in the ceasefire and US sanctions. Advertisement Earlier, Ghalibaf wrote on X that Washington had previously agreed to unblock Iranian assets and to a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israeli attacks on Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters have killed nearly 2,000 people since the start of the fighting in March.Israel and the US have s …
