The Iranian delegation for negotiations with the United States touched down in Islamabad in the small hours of April 11, and even their arrival was a political statement. Inside the aircraft were rows of empty seats with photographs and backpacks belonging to victims of the Minab school strike, a tribute to those children and a message to the world. Earlier, Tehran had deliberately dragged its feet on confirming whether it would show up at all, a calculated move to project composure and gain the upper hand in the negotiations.
Leading the delegation is Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and his presence alone marks a sharp shift in tone. Gone is the Western-facing, deal-hungry style that figures like Javad Zarif once embodied. Ghalibaf is cut from altogether different cloth—a hardliner, a security man and a product of the revolutionary establishment. He fought in the Iran–Iraq War as a young commander, lost a brother to it, and carries that conflict with him still. His appointment means that Tehran is leading with strength.
At his side is Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a sharp and experienced negotiator who has written extensively on the art of diplomatic leverage. Together they head a delegation that has been assembled with care. Senior officials have been assigned to dedicated committees covering military, economic, legal, and political matters. It means that decisions could be made on the spot rather than referred back to Tehran at every turn.
Iran's greatest card, however, remains the Strait of Hormuz. By making plain that it can choke off maritime traffic through this narrow but vital waterway, Tehran has put itself at the centre of the global economy's anxieties. America cannot guarantee the free passage of commercial shipping there on its own, and both sides know it. The unspoken threat of supply chain disruption and fuel shortages lurks beneath every exchange, and it gives Iran far more leverage than its current circumstances might otherwise suggest.
At the table itself, Iranian negotiators are expected to adopt what their own officials have called a "market style" — unhurried, persistent, grinding. And before any substantive talks can even begin, Tehran has laid down conditions. It wants frozen assets released, and it wants explicit assurances that any ceasefire will cover Lebanon too. For Iran, the two cannot be separated.
Yet for all the outward confidence, the vulnerabilities are real. Iran has taken serious hits, both militarily and economically, in recent months, and the pressure for sanctions relief is mounting. At home, the balancing act is a delicate one. Hardline figures are working to keep their base fired up, even as the judiciary clamps down on dissent to hold things together internally.
There is also the matter of trust, or the lack of it. Tehran has not forgotten that Donald Trump walked away from the 2015 nuclear deal, nor the military actions taken during what were supposed to be periods of diplomacy. Lebanon has become the litmus test. If Washington cannot rein in Benjamin Netanyahu and stop the strikes on Hezbollah, Iran will conclude that America cannot be taken at its word on anything larger. And if the talks collapse entirely, Iran's military leadership has made clear it stands ready to resume hostilities.
The American delegation, for its part, arrives with a rather different energy. Led by Vice President J.D. Vance, it is the highest-level American team to talk to Iran since 1979, and also includes perennial Trump favourites Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Vance is an interesting choice. He has long been sceptical of open-ended Middle Eastern entanglements, and his earlier hesitancy during the conflict has, oddly enough, made him more credible in Iranian eyes. Tehran reportedly pushed for his inclusion, reckoning that someone genuinely wary of escalation might actually mean what he says. But that cuts both ways. Any agreement that looks too generous could wound him politically back home, while failure would leave him associated with a conflict he never much wanted to be part of.
Pakistan, meanwhile, has leant into its role as host with considerable enthusiasm. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has spoken of the moment in grand terms, casting Islamabad as both facilitator and mediator. It is not an unreasonable claim. Pakistan has close ties with Washington, a working relationship with Beijing, and a degree of credibility across the Gulf, which is a rare combination that allows it to serve as a genuine bridge between camps that would otherwise have no easy way to talk.
Wider regional forces are also in play. Saudi Arabia has quietly assembled a loose alignment with Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, a Sunni grouping aimed at containing both Iranian influence and Israeli military action, driven by genuine alarm at how quickly things could spiral. China, heavily reliant on Gulf energy, has its own reasons to want the Strait of Hormuz calm, and has been using that influence to encourage Tehran towards restraint.
The thorniest problem of all, however, remains Israel. Netanyahu has shrugged off international pressure, refused to extend any ceasefire to Hezbollah, and shown no sign of halting military operations. That intransigence has unsettled the region and drawn pointed criticism from European leaders, including Emmanuel Macron and his British counterpart, both of whom are scrambling to keep the Islamabad process from falling apart. Trump himself was forced to call up Netanyahu yesterday and ask him to go it easy on Lebanon.
What is unfolding in Islamabad, then, is something far more tangled than a straightforward bilateral negotiation. It is a geopolitical pressure cooker, with every party nursing its own calculations, constraints, and lines it will not cross. The ceasefire has quietened the guns for now, but it has resolved nothing underneath. Whether these talks produce something lasting or simply buy time before the next eruption will depend on how carefully, and how honestly, these pressures are handled in the next few days.