By Friday evening, April 25, the second round of talks appeared to be taking place. Pakistani officials received the Iranian foreign minister at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi. White House confirmed that its two top envoys were to leave for Islamabad in the morning on Saturday. Soldiers were seen on rooftops along key approach roads to the airport. The venue was set. The city was ready. Then, on Saturday, the US delegation was canceled at the last moment.
Iran’s foreign minister met Pakistani leaders before departing for Oman, describing the visit as “very fruitful” and praising Pakistani mediation, but adding pointedly: “Have yet to see if the US is truly serious about diplomacy.” Tehran made it clear at the very beginning that there would be no face-to-face meeting with the US. The observations of Iran would be shared with Pakistan, and not with Washington itself. Hours after this pronouncement, Washington proved Tehran to be unconvinced by this move by canceling the trip altogether.
The US president announced the cancellation on social media, citing travel time, an Iranian proposal he described as “not good enough,” and what he called “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership. The reasons mentioned are worth questioning. The variable of travel time was not new. The same flight existed when the first delegation made the journey and sat for 21 hours of talks. It was the White House itself that had confirmed only a day before that the Iranians had contacted them and asked to conduct the face-to-face discussion. It was a sudden turnaround, and one not to be explained substantially.
The Pressure Points the Weekend Exposed
The breakdown was not caused by a single miscalculation. It was the product of multiple pressures pulling the process apart simultaneously. The first is the domestic disturbance in Washington. Senior US officials have been anonymously briefing major outlets that the president is hampering deal efforts through impulsive social media posts and poor impulse control on the Iran file. That is quite a failure in itself. It is hardly a sign of an effective policy when high-ranking officials leak frustrations about their own president at the time of active negotiations of a war. These leaks are read by Tehran. Each of these anonymous insider complaints reinforces the Iranian claim that the US team lacks one credible voice.
The second is the blockade. Iran has insisted on the US lifting its naval blockade against Iranian ports as a prerequisite to reconvening substantive negotiations. Washington has dismissed this option by maintaining that the blockade remains until a deal is sealed. By Saturday, the US Navy had redirected 37 ships and captured three due to non-compliance. Iran refers to this as a violation of the ceasefire. Washington refers to it as leverage. Neither side has moved.
The third one is the Iranian proposal itself. Although the trip was canceled, the US president admitted that ten minutes after the announcement, Tehran offered a new and better proposal. That timeline is revealing. Iran was ready to move, but it was waiting to be pushed to a pressure point. The cancellation was at that point of pressure. The US president assured that the cancellation does not mean a resumption of fighting. The war is not resuming. The process has stalled, in the same place and for the same reasons as before.
What Pakistan Holds Together
In the face of all this, it was Pakistan that was the constant variable. The Iranian foreign minister left Islamabad on Saturday and flew to Oman to hold meetings on the Strait of Hormuz and returned to the city the following day, Sunday, on a second visit in 48 hours before flying on to Moscow. Indirect ceasefire contacts described by Pakistani officials remained alive but weak, without any plans for US envoys to visit the region shortly. Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan thanked Pakistani leadership for “their tireless efforts” to end the war even as his foreign minister departed for Moscow. The channel remains open. The venue remains Islamabad. Pakistan remains the only actor trusted by both sides enough to hold those threads simultaneously.
