- US VP Vance tells Iran not to ‘play’ US at Pakistan talks.
- Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon continue on Friday.
- Talks won’t start until US fulfil previous demands: Iran.
Iran said on Friday that blocked Iranian assets must be released and that a ceasefire must take hold in Lebanon before peace talks can proceed, throwing last-minute doubt over negotiations scheduled for Saturday in Pakistan.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X that the two measures had been previously agreed with the US and warned that negotiations would not start until they are fulfilled.
There was no immediate comment from the White House.
Earlier, Vice President JD Vance, who will lead the US delegation, set off for the talks in Pakistan saying he expected a positive outcome. But “if they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive”, Vance added.
Iran has been unable to obtain tens of billions of dollars of its assets in foreign banks, mainly from exports of oil and gas, due to US sanctions on its banking and energy sectors.
Tenuous truce
US President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire in the six-week war on Tuesday, just hours before a deadline after which he had threatened to destroy Iran’s civilisation.
However, the truce is tenuous with Israel’s continuing bombardment of Lebanon and the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz proving key sticking points for both sides.
The ceasefire has halted the campaign of US and Israeli air strikes on Iran. But it has so far done nothing to end the blockade of the strait, which has caused the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies, or to calm a parallel war waged by Israel against Iran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.
Iran was doing a “very poor job” of letting oil through the strait, US President Donald Trump said in a social media post. He also warned Tehran against trying to collect fees from ships crossing it. “That is not the agreement we have!”
Israel has also said that its parallel campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon was not part of the agreed ceasefire.
Israeli strikes continued across southern Lebanon on Friday, with more than a dozen people reported killed in various towns. One strike killed eight members of Lebanese state security forces, the country’s state media said.
