October 1, 2026
ISLAMABAD (AP) — With the ceasefire in Iran still shaky, U.S. Vice President JD Vance headed Friday to Pakistan for high-level talks with Iranian officials, as Israel and Hezbollah militants traded fire and Tehran maintained its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz.
Many issues could derail the truce and the negotiations aimed at making a broader deal to stop the fighting permanently.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed that the talks set for Saturday would not happen unless Israel stopped its attacks in Lebanon. U.S. President Donald Trump said on his social media platform that Iran has no leverage except to restrict ship traffic in the strait, through which 20% of the world’s traded oil once passed.
Kuwait, meanwhile, said it was targeted by seven drone attacks since Thursday that it blamed on Iran and its militia allies in the region. Though the Guard denied launching any assault, it has carried out attacks across the Mideast in the past that it did not claim.
Preparations for the talks between Iran and the U.S. appeared to be moving forward, with Vance boarding Air Force Two for the long flight to Islamabad.
Elsewhere, negotiations between Israel and Lebanon were expected to begin Tuesday in the U.S. capital, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun's office said on Friday. Beirut is keen to hold direct talks to end the war between Israel and Hezbollah, but under a ceasefire similar to the one with Iran.
Before his departure, Vance said he believed the negotiations with Iran would be “positive.”
But he added, “If they’re going to try and play us, then they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
In Islamabad, security forces locked down key parts of the Pakistani capital, erecting barricades along routes from the airport to the city.
Hours later, the Iranian delegation led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf arrived in Islamabad, Iranian state TV reported. The delegation included security, political, military, economic, and legal teams. The report said negotiations will begin only if the other side accepts Iran’s preconditions.
Earlier in the day, Qalibaf posted on social media that two points he said had been mutually agreed on — a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of blocked Iranian assets — have yet to be implemented.
“These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin,” he wrote.
Israel’s insistence that the ceasefire in Iran does not include a pause in its fighting with Hezbollah has threatened to sink the deal. The terrorist group joined the war in support of its backer, Iran.
The day the truce was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. It was the deadliest day in the country since the war began Feb. 28.
Trump said Thursday that he had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dial back the strikes.
Then on Friday, Israeli warplanes struck near a state security office in the southern town of Nabatieh, killing 13 officers, according to the Lebanese president's office. Israeli forces said they also hit about 10 rocket launchers in Lebanon that had fired toward northern Israel.
A day earlier, Netanyahu said he authorized the negotiations with Lebanon with the aim of disarming Hezbollah militants and establishing relations between the neighbors, which have technically been at war since Israel was established in 1948.
Aoun’s office confirmed that the two sides were set to negotiate after Lebanon and Israel’s ambassadors to the U.S. held a call with Washington’s ambassador to Lebanon to discuss terms. The U.S. State Department will mediate.
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