‘Typical negotiating lines’: Assessing the 1st round of US-Iran talks

For officials briefed on the talks between the United States and Iran that played out on Saturday in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, it was a resounding success that the two sides even came to the table. After 40 days of war, during which the US and Israel relentlessly bombed Iran and the Iranians responded by hitting oil facilities, US bases and military infrastructure in the Gulf as well as bombing Israel and effectively closing the world’s energy lifeline in the Strait of Hormuz, there was a major deficit of trust. Bringing the sides together required extensive diplomatic efforts from the Quartet of countries acting as mediators – Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – as well as external pressure from countries like China. But up until the Iranian delegation arrived in Islamabad, there were doubts that the talks were going to happen at all, according to a source in the Pakistani mediation team and an Egyptian official briefed on Cairo’s involvement in the process. Alongside the general distrust on all sides, Iran, in a litmus test for its post-war leverage, had insisted that the ceasefire include Lebanon before talks can begin. Though the US had pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rein in his war on Lebanon, the agreement was a loose one that allowed Israel to continue to strike under whatever pretense it could bring forth. “There was a moment when things looked very tight regarding the participation of both delegations because of the Lebanon front situation. But this was fixed with the American communication with Israel,” the Pakistani source says. After hours of delays, the Iranian delegation did arrive and the two sides sat down for the highest-level negotiations they have held since 1979. https://www.madamasr.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/c-oRzMIRlNn7EBIN.mp4   The Iranian delegation lands at the Nur Khan military base in Pakistan, April 10. Courtesy: CNN International reporter Sophia Saifi via X. US Vice President JD Vance, who was instrumental in bringing about a ceasefire and is the most anti-war member of the core team of American decision makers, led a broad team from other US institutions. The Iranian delegation was headed by Parliament Speaker Mohamed Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and included the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s governor and representatives from the National Security Council, Supreme National Security Council as well as the parliament. Neither the mediators nor the Americans were expecting a comprehensive deal, according to the Pakistani source and a former Arab official with inroads into Western and regional capitals. “The Americans are saying that the idea of the Islamabad talks is not to reach an agreement on all the complicated points but to agree on a framework agreement, because these things require a very long time and very thorough negotiations,” the former Arab official says. The Pakistani source agrees, saying mediators were hoping in the leadup to the talks to get “even a declaration of principles or a declaration of intent.” The two sides sat down for a 21-hour marathon of talks. According to the Pakistani source, there were moments where people were nice. There were moments of tension. People would get out of the room to make calls, and they would come back. The Pakistani prime minister was directly involved in the talks. He would make calls, receive calls from parties outside the room. The embassies from the other Quartet countries offered political support to the Pakistani delegation leading the talks, alongside senior delegations that had been sent to bolster the political heft of mediation. After the marathon negotiations, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Vance emerged for a brief press conference. “We have been at it now for 21 hours, and we’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news,” the US vice president said. “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America. So, we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are, what things we’re willing to accommodate them on, and what things we’re not willing to accommodate them on. And we’ve made that as clear as we possibly could and they have chosen not to accept our terms.” https://www.madamasr.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/vancet.mp4   US Vice President JD Vance speaks during a press conference in Islamabad, April 12. Courtesy: Dawn News via YouTube. Vance took a few short questions from the pool of reporters that accompanied the delegation before jetting off.  The Iranian delegation did not emerge from the talks with a press pool in waiting. But their tone in the 36 hours since talks ended echoes the pessimism laid out by Vance. “In intensive talks at highest level in 47 years, Iran engaged with the US in good faith to end war,” Araghchi wrote on social media. “But when just inches away from ‘Islamabad MoU’, we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade. Zero lessons [learned.] Good will begets good will. Enmity begets enmity.” In an escalatory move, US President Donald Trump announced a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.  https://www.madamasr.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Acyn_-_Trump_At_10_tomorrow_we_have_a_blockade_going_into_effect._Iran_wil._a1Tzcp.mp4   US President Donald Trump speaks to the press at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, April 12. Courtesy: Rapid Response 47 via X. This is where things stand, a little more than 36 hours after the conclusion of talks.  Mada Masr has spoken to two Egyptian officials informed of the Islamabad talks, a source in US diplomatic quarters in the Gulf, an Iranian diplomat, a former Arab official with inroads into Western and regional capitals, and the Pakistani source informed of the mediating position to understand what happened in the negotiations and where things go from here. The Pakistanis will try to draft new ideas, come up with compromises, share it with both sides, and demonstrate to both sides the losses they will face if they resume the war, but a clear timetable for the resumption of talks has not been set. Moreover, all sources agree that complex negotiations over complex issues are unfolding under pressure from hardliners on the Iranian side and a mercurial, impatient US president receptive to Israeli warmongering, who has fused power and politics unlike any of his predecessors. *** For the Pakistani source, the pessimism that emerged at the conclusion of the talks wasn’t a big deal. When asked about the seeming finality of Vance’s public remarks, the source said: “this is a typical negotiating line.” The Pakistanis, the source says, “expect both sides to be sending ideas, proposed language and so on. It is a work in progress. And we are committed. We have support for what we are doing from Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Oman. We are talking with Turkey and Egypt.” The source emphasizes that the talks did not “fail” even if the aim of coming out of the negotiations with a framework agreement or a declaration of intent did not materialize. “We needed the optics to give the process a push. I don’t think anybody expected this to be an overnight job with the decades of conflict between the US and Iran. Things cannot be settled overnight, not for real,” he says. US Vice President JD Vance and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meet on the sidelines of the Islamabad talks, April 11. Courtesy: Pakistani Prime Minister’s Office via X. The Iranian delegation in the Islamabad negotiations meets with Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir, April 12. Courtesy: Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan via X. But the actual discussions in the negotiating room weren’t merely optics, sources informed of the talks tell Mada Masr. While the delegations were able to agree on several key issues, the two sides were far apart in strategic aims, posture and content. For both the Pakistani source and a source in US diplomacy quarters in the Gulf, the two sides were able to make significant progress on the Strait of Hormuz. Though the closure of the strait is Iran’s most significant point of leverage and has been presented in the media as the most contentious issue between the two sides, according to the Pakistani source, it is a secondary matter. Both sources say the Americans and Iranians agreed to work together to remove the mines the Iranians placed there during the war, alongside help from the British. “This is what the British prime minister was discussing during his recent Gulf tour,” the Pakistani source says. However, the source in US diplomacy quarters says that this good will doesn’t necessarily mean a deal could materialize. This is largely due to each side’s aims in the talks. In the source’s estimation, it is possible to reach an agreement that is “narrow and focused” on opening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for unfreezing Iranian assets. “The Americans were willing to release assets not just in Qatar but also in South Korea and they were willing to release more assets in other countries provided the deal is focused on the tradeoff of the opening of Hormuz for assets,” the source says. But both the Pakistani source and the source in US diplomacy quarters say that discussing Iran’s nuclear program led to a major impasse in negotiations. Vance voiced this issue in his press conference in Islamabad. “The simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the president of the United States and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations,” the vice president said. “The simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon? Not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term. We haven’t seen that yet.” https://www.madamasr.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/x-downloader.com_yqoChj.mp4   US President Donald Trump speaks to the press on the Islamabad talks, April 10. Courtesy: Rapid Response 47 via X. For the source in US diplomacy quarters and the Egyptian officials briefed on the talks, the nuclear question reveals the delegations’ differing postures. The source in US diplomacy quarters says that the US understanding of Iranian decision making at the moment is that it is a shared leadership between Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who was badly injured in the war, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The source attributes a hardline stance to IRGC instructions, framing Ghalibaf and Araghchi as being more willing to work within a narrow tradeoff logic and postpone nuclear talks for another phase. “Instructions came from the IRGC that there [can be] no deal that does not include a clear line on Iran’s nuclear program, its right for enrichment. This got the Americans so upset. And they adopted a very maximalist position whereby they said no nuclear program whatsoever, civilian or otherwise,” the source says. “By insisting to talk about the nuclear program and to have a clear line on the proxies, things got complicated. This was not supposed to be phase one.” An Egyptian official briefed on the talks echoes that, by the end, the Americans had adopted a “take it or leave it approach.” For the former Arab official with inroads into Western and regional capitals, this divided approach reflects the Americans’ failure to understand that the war has changed the Iranian negotiating position. “It was only expected that each side would put forward a maximalist position. Each side is acting as if it is the one who won the war. But the Americans do not realize that there were things that the Iranians could have accepted before the war that they will never settle down for now,” the former Arab official says, pointing to matters related to the enrichment of uranium — the level, the place, the fate of already enriched uranium — Iran’s ballistic missiles and missile launchers, and proxy fighters. According to an Iranian diplomat, Tehran felt it presented constructive initiatives that did not receive a sufficient response. A second Egyptian official briefed on the talks says that the lack of engagement on these issues comes down to the US delegation’s posture, pointing specifically to Vance’s position in Trump’s competitive inner circle. “[A deal wasn’t reached] not necessarily because it wasn’t possible but because Vance would not want to sign an agreement right from the start, because that will come across as a total surrender to the Iranians and this is not something that Vance would want to be the author of, especially as he is perceived as the one person in this administration that is most opposed to this war. So, he wants to play a tough hand,” says the second Egyptian source.   The Americans, the source adds, were betting on a split within the Iranian negotiating team. But all the bodies that went to Islamabad, “are subject to the instructions of the IRGC and they cannot fall into disagreement,” the source says. The Pakistani source points to another problem in the structure of the talks: Israel. Communications between the US and Israel are continuous, the source says. “The biggest problem we have to deal with is not a compromised draft or getting the Saudis or Qataris on board, or having the support of Turkey or Egypt or, for that matter, the Europeans. No, the biggest problem we face is keeping the Israelis away from influencing American decision making because Israel will not be able to accept any kind of agreement,” the Pakistani source says.  *** When asked about a timeline for the resumption of talks, the Pakistani source was confident they would resume and that the ceasefire would hold. “Maybe in the next week or two, but they will resume,” he tells Mada Masr. The two Egyptian officials and the source in US diplomatic quarters do not rule out that negotiations will carry on, saying Egypt is holding talks with Washington officials and the Pakistanis to try to keep the process going. For the second Egyptian official, the US may change its hand in the upcoming negotiations, replacing Vance with one of the more pro-war members of Trump’s inner circle. Speaking after Trump imposed a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian diplomat was much less optimistic, denying there would be a new round of negotiations altogether and threatening that the Houthis could close Bab al-Mandab to increase pressure. As anti-political as it is, every source agrees that much of what happens next will come down to one man: Trump. Each source has a different read on what might inform Trump’s decisions. For the former Arab official with inroads in the US, Trump will be motivated to strike a deal to maintain his party’s congressional majority in the upcoming midterm election — an increasingly tenuous prospect as Republicans grow more frustrated with how the situation in the region is affecting their polling, with the conflict driving up inflation and fuel prices. “Trump needs to find an exit that is diplomatic because he needs to cut his losses,” the source says. That said, a deal will not be a quick affair, the former official adds. “I don’t think the Iranians are in a rush to have an agreement now because they know Trump would find it very hard to resume the war, Israel might be more willing but not Trump. And therefore, they will take their time with negotiations, as they traditionally do,” he says. “But it is hard to expect Trump to have the patience and the wisdom for such long-term negotiations that could produce a comprehensive deal. Trump wants a one-page agreement that he could read in three minutes and that he could reach in a few days.” The first Egyptian official agrees with this assessment, saying negotiations with Iran require sophistication and patience, neither of which Trump possesses. The two Egyptian officials, the former Arab official, and the source in US diplomacy circles all agree that Iran currently has the upper hand, downplaying the effects of Trump’s maritime siege. For one, the former Arab official says, the blockade will not do anything that the war didn’t already do.  According to the former Arab official, who holds talks with US military officials in DC, and the Egyptian officials, the other problem with the siege or any further American escalation is that the Pentagon is concerned about what such a deployment would look like.  A blockade would be very difficult to execute and this is what the US military is telling Trump, the first Egyptian official says, adding that it would put American ships directly in Iran’s line of fire and that the US military is dragging its feet in implementing the move. “The Pentagon is extremely unhappy about the way things are being done,” the second Egyptian official says. “I am not saying that they do not want to eliminate Iran’s nuclear and missile capacities. They might agree on the target. But not on the way things are managed. And not on the way Trump and his defense secretary think things could happen.” A Pakistani analyst says that if the US actually does blockade the strait, it could set Washington up for tension with Beijing, as China has continued to receive oil shipments from Iran throughout the war via the Strait of Hormuz.  But the first Egyptian official and the source in US diplomacy quarters are less sure of the status quo holding, given the rashness and impatience of the US president. And this largely has to do with what they characterize as Iran’s misestimation of Trump. Speaking on Sunday evening, the source in US diplomacy quarters in the Gulf says that “over the last 12 hours, the Quartet countries have been talking to the Americans, the Iranians and among themselves to try to salvage the ceasefire before Trump goes mad.” “The IRGC thinks it is holding Trump by the throat because of the energy crisis and the midterms and this is true. However, it is also true that the US is a world superpower and that Trump is not like any other president, not even George W. Bush. And Trump is highly influenced by Netanyahu, and, with the exception of JD Vance, no one from his inner circle was opposed to the war.” The source underlined that it is not beyond the current president to move forward with “apocalyptic scenarios.” “If the mediators fail, and if the parties stand by their maximalist positions, and if the negotiations fail, and this is a scenario not to be excluded, then all hell could break loose,” the source says. “And I am fully convinced that the Iranians do not understand that this administration is not like any other administration. This is not an administration that reads and analyzes and calculates. Otherwise, it would not have started the war at all.” American soldiers perform maintenance on a Patriot mobile interceptor missile system in the Middle East, April 12. Courtesy: US Central Command via X. There is already talk in diplomatic circles, according to the source and an Arab diplomat in New York, of a new United Nations Security Council resolution to forcefully open the Strait of Hormuz, after a similar Bahraini draft resolution failed to secure backing even after numerous rounds of revisions. “If such a resolution is vetoed again, the US will easily have a coalition of the willing, including the British and maybe others, and it will go ahead and open Hormuz notwithstanding the possibility of obvious casualties,” the source in US diplomacy quarters says.  For now, the Pakistani source says, “the important thing is to keep the process going.”  He adds that there is a push to have another round of talks in three to four days in Islamabad. Currently, the important thing, he says, is to push forward with a step-by-step process of confidence-building measures, with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif working on one side to avoid pressures from the Iranians and Israelis to bend the process toward an immediate comprehensive deal, which would be nearly impossible to achieve, and on the other to curtail spoilers in the US camp such as US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.  The Iranian diplomat hopes the truce will remain in place as a framework to prevent a new confrontation. The Egyptian official says there is growing recognition in Washington that the war must end. “There are enough people in Washington who realize that this war has to stop, not just for the American economy but also for the American military,” he said. The problem is, the source continues, nobody knows what is going on in Trump’s head.The post ‘Typical negotiating lines’: Assessing the 1st round of US-Iran talks first appeared on Mada Masr.