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Orange Wang

Alyssa Chen

Khushboo Razdan

US Vice-President J.D. Vance has boarded Air Force Two en route to Islamabad, according to the White House.
Vance, who will lead the US delegation in talks with Iran in the Pakistani capital on Saturday, struck an upbeat tone on the prospects.
“We’re looking forward to negotiation. I think it’s going to be positive,” he told reporters before boarding on Friday morning (US Eastern Time).
“As the President of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand. If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
In a cryptic social media post shortly after Vance departed for the much-anticipated negotiations, Trump said: “World’s most powerful reset.” He did not elaborate.
But expectations are low for major progress in talks in Pakistan this weekend, with the Strait of Hormuz and Israel among the big points of contention, according to Chinese analysts.
Vance is joined by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for what will be the most significant face-to-face, high-level contact between the two countries since 1979.
The US Secret Service has already arrived in the Pakistani capital to make security arrangements ahead of his visit.
The talks will reportedly take place at Islamabad’s Serena Hotel and authorities in the city have tightened security, turning parts of the capital into controlled security zones.
The negotiations take place in the middle of a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief of staff Asim Munir have stressed the need for all parties to maintain peace and uphold the ceasefire.


Wang Jin, a professor of Middle East studies at China’s Northwest University, said the uneasy truce had merely “frozen” the conflict and big differences remained between the two sides.
He added that some elements of a 10-point proposal released by Tehran were either beyond Washington’s ability to reach or not solely within its control.
Iran claimed that these terms had been accepted by the White House as the basis of negotiations, a suggestion that Trump later dismissed as “fake”.
Sun Degang, director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Iran and the US could build a degree of mutual trust if both sides could ensure the safety of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. said Iran and the US could build a degree of mutual trust if both sides could ensure the safety of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
“Otherwise, the conflict is likely to flare up again, particularly as Israel has yet to achieve its objective of toppling the Iranian government,” he said.
“Neither the US nor Iran wants the conflict to continue. Only Israel seeks to press ahead with military operations.”
Only a handful of vessels have gone through the strait since the ceasefire began. Shipping resumed briefly but Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Thursday that maritime traffic had been halted again following what Tehran claimed was an Israeli ceasefire violation in Lebanon against the Iran-backed Hezbollah. The Israeli attacks continued on Friday.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused Israel of “blatantly” violating the initial ceasefire with its strikes on Lebanon, warning that such actions could jeopardise the talks between Tehran and Washington.
“Such actions signal deception and non-compliance, rendering negotiations meaningless. Our hands remain on the trigger. Iran will never forsake its Lebanese brothers and sisters,” he said in a social media post on Thursday.




Nevertheless, Trump lashed out against Iran for not fully reopening the vital waterway, accusing Tehran of violating the ceasefire agreement.
“Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonourable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said in a social media post. “That is not the agreement we have!”
Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei countered, saying Tehran “will definitely take the management of the Strait of Hormuz to a new phase”.
Before the ceasefire, the US and Israel also struck the Yahya Abad railway bridge in the central Iranian city of Kashan on Tuesday, underscoring the potential risks to Chinese investments in the Middle East. Iran is a link in a transcontinental railway system associated with China’s massive international infrastructure programme, the Belt and Road Initiative.


If the Strait of Hormuz stalemate continues, the US and Iran could find it even more difficult to back down, according to Cui Hongjian, head of European Union studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
Cui said Iran had gained a form of symmetrical leverage against the US by controlling the critical waterway.
And for the US, that pressure had spread beyond the battlefield to encompass diplomacy, economics and energy, he said.
“In light of that, Washington’s options in terms of policy and measures are shrinking,” Cui said.
Trump’s frustration is evident in his repeated criticism of Washington’s close allies – including other Nato members as well as Australia, Japan and South Korea – for failing to help the US in the conflict.
Former Australian leader Tony Abbott has said that Canberra should be prepared to join a war in the Middle East, a suggestion that Richard Marles, the country’s defence minister and acting prime minister, rejected on Friday.
“We have not been part of this conflict against Iran … we will act in our national interest, and we respectfully disagree with Mr Abbott’s position,” Marles told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s News Breakfast programme.
The fragility of the truce and uncertainties of the peace talks may further unsettle global trade and energy markets.
The Asian Development Bank said on Friday that if the Middle East conflict were to drag on for ⁠a year, developing economies in the Asia-Pacific region could lose about 1.3 percentage points of growth over 2026 and 2027.
South Korea says it plans to send a special envoy to Iran to discuss the situation in the Middle East and bilateral issues.


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US Vice-President J.D. Vance strikes upbeat tone en route to Iran talks

US Vice-President J.D. Vance is on his way to Pakistan for discussions on Saturday with a delegation from Iran. Photo: AFP

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Buildings lie in ruins in Tehran after joint US-Israel airstrikes, reflecting the widening toll of the conflict on the Iranian capital. Photo: Getty Images



Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, one of the lawmakers who introduced the failed Senate resolution, claimed US President Donald Trump had dragged the US into “unnecessary forever wars”. Photo: Getty Images via AFP 

How can Beijing prepare for Trump’s ‘drunken boxing’ style before he meets Xi in China?

Commentators say the US president’s volatile, and often contradictory, negotiation style may be effective and parties across the table should react to his actions, not his words. Photo: AP

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As the clock ticks down to negotiations in Islamabad, two big factors stand in the way of progress


As the clock ticks down to negotiations in Islamabad, two big factors stand in the way of progress.


US Vice-President J.D. Vance strikes upbeat tone en route to Iran talks

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As the clock ticks down to negotiations in Islamabad, two big factors stand in the way of progress

As the clock ticks down to negotiations in Islamabad, two big factors stand in the way of progress