Abbas Araghchi met with Pakistani officials in Islamabad for about two hours on Saturday, but he left the city ahead of the expected arrival of U.S. envoys.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew to Islamabad Friday night to negotiate a more lasting truce between Iran and the U.S. following a ceasefire agreement between the two countries.
Araghchi met with Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif in Pakistan’s capital on Saturday to discuss the situation in Iran, according to the prime minister’s X account.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in an X post that Sharif and other senior leaders met with Araghchi for about two hours on Saturday. Araghchi left Islamabad after those talks, and ahead of the expected arrival of U.S. envoys, the state-run IRNA news agency reported later Saturday.
Araghchi said in his earlier post that he would also also be traveling to Oman’s capital of Muscat and to Moscow to “consult on regional developments.”
Pakistan has acted as a broker between Tehran and Washington, which have been at war since the end of February, when the U.S., together with Israel, launched a military assault on the Middle Eastern country. The U.S. and Iran, with Pakistan acting as a mediator, reached a tentative ceasefire at the beginning of April.
But both sides have also been exerting control over the key waterway of the Strait of Hormuz, with U.S. President Donald Trump declaring that the passage was blockaded. On Wednesday, Iran’s semi-official state news agency said that the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two foreign ships traveling through the strait.
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were also flying to the Pakistani capital on Saturday for peace talks. U.S. Vice President JD Vance will not be traveling to Pakistan but will be “on standby” to join the negotiations, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday. Vance accompanied Witkoff and Kushner to peace talks with Iranian officials earlier this month in Islamabad.
However, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said that there would be no direct bilateral negotiations between the two sides. “Iran’s observations would be conveyed to Pakistan,” Baqaei said.