Marathon U.S.-Iran talks ended without a deal — what happened in Islamabad?

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Washington was demanding a full reopening of Hormuz, which emerged as the key sticking point, and curbs on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. Tehran was pushing for sanctions relief, a continued grip on the waterway and a broader rollback of U.S. military presence in the Middle East.

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“The U.S. must learn: you can’t dictate terms to Iran,” Iran’s former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, posted on X. “It’s not too late to learn. Yet.”

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For Vance, joined by senior envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the stakes were also personal. With Trump the final arbiter, getting a deal that satisfies him could bolster Vance’s credentials for a possible 2028 presidential run. But failure could tarnish him. A longtime critic of so-called forever wars, Vance had reason to push for a breakthrough.

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Simply hosting the talks was a win for Pakistan, which has spent years balancing ties with Iran, Gulf states, the U.S. and China and was now at the center of some of the highest-stakes global diplomacy in years. In the middle of it all, Saudi Arabia, which Iran has bombarded over the course of the war, announced that Pakistani air force fighter jets and support aircraft had arrived at King Abdulaziz Air Base as part of a strategic defence pact between the two countries.

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From the left, Army Chief Syed Asim Munir walks with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf upon their arrival at Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. Photo by HANDOUT /Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign A

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Preparation had been intense across Pakistan’s usually calm, leafy capital. Workers lined Srinagar Highway with green crescent-moon flags. Businesses shut after authorities declared an impromptu holiday. Shipping containers blocked roads, soldiers fanned out across the city, and hotels quietly cleared their guests. A hastily assembled media center distributed coffee in cups labelled “brewed for peace.”

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Just before noon, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met the Iranian delegation to hammer out details even as the format of the discussions remained unsettled. Iranian media said no decision had been made on direct versus mediated talks, and that Sharif had floated trilateral negotiations.

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Sharif also hosted Vance, praising both sides for engaging and expressing hope the talks could lead to a durable peace.

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Meantime, the first signs of movement appeared about 1,000 miles away in the Strait of Hormuz. Two Chinese supertankers loaded with crude moved toward the strait, hours after a Greek vessel made the crossing. All three cleared the passage late Saturday, marking the biggest day for oil shipments since the war choked off flows.

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There was far less movement in Islamabad. Just before 2 p.m., three hours after Vance’s arrival, the trilateral talks still hadn’t begun, as he was with Sharif. From the time that Sharif greeted Vance, press wouldn’t see the vice president for another 16 hours.

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Trump, watching from Washington, made clear that he was paying attention.

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“Massive ​numbers of completely empty oil tankers, ​some of the largest anywhere in the ⁠World, are heading, right now, to ​the United States to load up with the ​best and ‘sweetest’ oil and gas anywhere in the World,” he wrote on Truth Social.

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