The point on negotiations
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to leave for Pakistan today to negotiate a peace deal with Iran. However, according to Tehran, no direct meetings are planned between the delegation of the Islamic Republic – now led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, after the resignation of the head of parliament Ghalibaf – and the American representatives (Trump’s deputy Jd Vance is absent).
According to a spokesperson for Tehran’s Foreign Ministry, Islamabad officials should therefore act as intermediaries in the discussions at this stage.
One of the main issues to be resolved will be the resumption of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, which currently remains frozen due to the naval blockades of the USA and Iran. On the contrary, there should be no “nuclear talks”, according to what the head of the Iranian national security committee Ebrahim Azizi reiterated to the Iranian press.
For the moment the positions of the parties still appear distant, but White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt has made it known that the US is seeing progress from Tehran. Trump then told Reuters yesterday that Iran intends to make an offer to meet US demands.
“We are dealing with the people who are in power at the moment,” he told the Reuters news agency. Meanwhile, Tehran International Airport has reopened, after almost two months of closure of Iranian airspace, with the first international departures to destinations such as Medina, Muscat and Istanbul.
