U.S.-Iran talks underway in Pakistani capital after delegations arrive

The United States and Iran began peace talks Saturday in Pakistan as the war entered its seventh week.

The negotiations seek to cement a two-week ceasefire that began Tuesday but which has come under strain as Iran continues to block most shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most critical chokepoint for oil and gas supplies. Tehran also reiterated a list of preconditions for the talks.

Pakistan confirmed the arrival of a delegation of Iranian negotiators ahead of talks on Saturday with the U.S. to end the six-week-old war that Washington and Tel Aviv have led against Tehran.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance's team landed in Islamabad early Saturday and was met by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

On Friday, Vance told reporters he thinks the negotiations will be "positive," while warning Iran not to "play us."

Pakistan's foreign ministry said the Iranian delegation led by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in the capital, Islamabad, late Friday.

Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar "expressed the hope that parties would engage constructively, and reiterated Pakistan's desire to continue facilitating the parties towards reaching [a] lasting and durable solution to the conflict," Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a post on X.

The meeting comes amid heightened tensions over conflicting reports concerning the Strait of Hormuz.

A U.S. official told Axios that several U.S. Navy ships had crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday. But Iranian state TV and a Pakistani source denied that any U.S. vessel had passed through the waterway, according to Reuters.

Earlier in the day, a senior Iranian source told Reuters the U.S. had agreed to release frozen assets held in ⁠Qatar and other foreign banks, but a U.S. official immediately denied the report.

Meanwhile, Trump said the U.S. military has ​started to ​clear the ​Strait of Hormuz, claiming that all of Iran's minelaying ships have been sunk.

"We're now starting the process of ⁠clearing ‌out the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote ⁠in a Truth Social post, adding that "all 28" of Iran's "mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea."

But question marks hang over the ceasefire and the outcome of the talks.

Iran's Tasnim news agency said on Saturday that Tehran has presented negotiators with four "non-negotiable conditions" to mediators in Islamabad.

They include: "[F]ull sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, complete war reparations by the aggressor, unconditional release of blocked assets, and a durable ceasefire across the entire West-Asia Region," Tasnim said on its X account.

Ghalibaf warned Friday that the scheduled negotiations to end the war with the U.S. cannot begin unless Israel halts attacks on Lebanon and unless the U.S. releases Tehran's frozen assets.

Ghalibaf issued the ultimatum after the American delegation led by Vance left for Islamabad to attend the talks.

"Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran's blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations," Ghalibaf said in an X post.

"These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin," he wrote.

Three supertankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, shipping data showed, marking what appeared to be the ​first vessels ​to exit the ​Gulf since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal.

Tehran's blockade of ⁠the ‌strait, a chokepoint for about ⁠20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, since the start of the Iran war at the end of ‌February, has disrupted global energy supplies and sent oil prices soaring.

The Liberia-flagged Very ​Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) Serifos and China-flagged VLCCs Cospearl Lake and He Rong Hai, entered and exited the "Hormuz Passage trial anchorage" that ⁠bypasses Iran's Larak Island on Saturday, LSEG data showed.

Each vessel ‌is capable of carrying 2 ‌million barrels of oil.

Serifos, carrying crude loaded from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in early ⁠March, is expected to arrive at Malaysia's Malacca ⁠port on April 21, data from ⁠LSEG and analytics firm Kpler showed.

Cospearl Lake is laden with Iraqi oil and He ​Rong Hai is carrying ‌Saudi crude, the same data showed.

Both VLCCs are chartered by Unipec, the trading arm of Chinese energy giant Sinopec, according to the data.

Trump has expressed frustration with Iran continuing to block most shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

In an announcement Tuesday evening, Trump said that the U.S. would agree to a two-week suspension of hostilities subject to Iran agreeing to a complete and immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

But since then, vessel traffic through the strait remains nearly as tightly throttled as it has been since the war began on Feb. 28.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday evening, Trump fumed, "There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!"

Iran "is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz," the president wrote in a follow-up post. "That is not the agreement we have!"

— CNBC's Terri Cullen, Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report