Live updates: Next round of US-Iran talks to take place in Pakistan on Monday, Iranian sources say

US Iran talks: Pakistan hosts Monday nuclear meeting after Oman success

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

Iranian and US delegations will meet in Islamabad on Monday for their second round of nuclear negotiations, Tehran officials confirmed.

The Pakistan venue follows Saturday’s secret Omani-brokered session that produced the first written understanding since 2015.

The talks signal Washington’s clearest shift from Trump’s 2018 withdrawal that crippled the Iranian economy and pushed uranium enrichment to weapons-grade levels. Gulf governments have warned both capitals that renewed escalation could close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 percent of global oil flows.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran late Sunday that the Islamic Republic’s negotiating team “headed for Islamabad last night” after receiving US confirmation. He said Abbas Araghchi, the veteran diplomat who clinched the original 2015 JCPOA deal, would again lead the delegation.

State Department spokesman Thomas Habbard confirmed the meeting in a two-line statement, saying “US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will continue discussions aimed at preventing Iranian nuclear weapon acquisition.” Habbard added that Washington still seeks “a diplomatic path” but refused to detail any provisional agreements reached in Muscat.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi revealed the weekend breakthrough to CNN, saying Muscat hosted “intensive proximity talks” that produced a one-page “confidence-building matrix” accepted by both sides. The document, not released publicly, reportedly commits Iran to freezing enrichment above 60 percent for six months in exchange for limited oil export waivers worth an estimated $4 billion per quarter.

Iranian crude exports have fallen to 650,000 barrels per day under existing US sanctions, down from 2.5 million before Trump abandoned the accord.

European diplomats reacted cautiously. French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said “any step back from the brink is welcome” but warned that verification mechanisms must return. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged both parties to “build quickly on this fragile momentum” and invited them to Berlin for expanded talks with Britain, France, and Germany, the remaining European signatories.

Israeli officials struck a harsher tone. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a statement saying Israel “will not accept any partial deal that keeps Iran on the nuclear threshold” and reserved “full freedom of action.” The language recalled Israel’s 2007 strike on Syria’s Al Kibar reactor and its 2021 sabotage campaign against Iranian facilities.

Oil markets calmed after weekend spikes. Brent crude slipped 1.2 percent to $72.40 per barrel in early Asian trading as traders calculated that immediate supply disruption risks had receded. Analysts at RBC Capital warned, however, that “any Israeli military response could send prices back above $90 within hours.”

Saudi Arabia and the UAE kept silent publicly but privately briefed Western envoys that they support dialogue provided it restrains Tehran’s regional missile program.

Heightened security was visible early Monday in Islamabad’s diplomatic enclave, where Pakistani paramilitary Rangers blocked side roads leading to the Saudi-Pak Friendship House, the likely venue. Local traders said the area was cleared after midnight, with snipers seen on nearby rooftops.

A senior Pakistani Foreign Ministry official, speaking on customary anonymity, told GlobalBeat that Islamabad acted at “mutual request” and would provide “logistics only, no mediation.” Pakistan maintains close ties to both capitals: it relies on Iranian gas imports and receives substantial US military funding.

The original 2015 deal, brokered by then US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, capped Iran’s enrichment at 3.67 percent and imposed 24-hour surveillance by the UN nuclear watchdog. Trump exited the pact in May 2018, reimposing banking and energy sanctions that shrank Iran’s economy by 20 percent in two years.

Iran responded with phased breaches, installing advanced IR-6 centrifuges, enriching to 20 percent, then to 60 percent after the 2020 killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. By February 2026 the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated Tehran possessed enough fissile material for 3 weapons if further refined.

Background

Washington and Tehran have held no direct negotiations since April 2021, when EU envoy Enrique Mora shuttled between Vienna hotels for six rounds of indirect talks. Those efforts collapsed after hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi won Iran’s presidency and demanded guarantees that no future US administration could again abandon the pact. President Joe Biden’s team, constrained by domestic politics, refused to bind future presidents, arguing Senate ratification was impossible.

The diplomatic ice broke in March 2026 when Oman, which had hosted secret US-Iran talks that preceded the 2015 deal, conveyed a letter from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei indicating willingness to freeze enrichment above civilian levels in return for economic relief. Senior White House Middle East adviser Brett McGurk visited Muscat twice in March, paving the way for Witkoff’s unprecedented one-on-one meeting with Araghchi on 11 April.

What’s Next

Iranian sources said the Islamabad session aims to convert the Muscat “matrix” into a formal six-month interim arrangement by Thursday, when the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty preparatory committee opens in Geneva. Western diplomats expect a possible joint statement that would freeze Iranian enrichment, release $7 billion in frozen Iraqi oil payments, and schedule wider talks in June covering missiles and regional proxies. Any final text must still clear the US Congress, where Republican leaders have threatened new sanctions if they deem the terms too lenient.

Even a limited freeze would postpone the so-called “breakout clock” to roughly 9 months, buying time for negotiators to tackle harder issues like Iran’s ballistic stockpile and Israeli security demands. Yet both governments face internal resistance: Iranian hard-liners warn against “capitulation,” while Republican senators prepare legislation requiring any accord to be submitted as a treaty demanding 67 Senate votes.