Trump announces that JD Vance and the US delegation plan to land in Islamabad in the next few hours

This Monday, updates on the Iran war and the Persian country’s future negotiations with the United States have been full of uncertainty and certain contradictions; However, everything indicates that the second round of talks between both countries in Islamabad will happen this week.

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, indicated this Monday to the New York Post that the vice president of the United States, JD Vance, and the American delegation —Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law— They are scheduled to land in Pakistan in the next few hours.

Conversation in which he added that he would be willing to meet personally with Iranian leaders if progress is made.

Shortly after, the president stated to Fox News what Today an agreement with Iran will be signed in Pakistan. However, this is highly unlikely to occur for several reasons.

On the one hand, sources familiar with the vice president’s plans explained that he had not yet left for Islamabad. “The American delegation plans to travel to Islamabad soon“, they said.

Previously, the chain CNN and the newspaper The New York Times reported that Vance will leave Washington on Tuesday.

On the other hand, the possible arrival of the Iranian delegation to the Pakistani capital is not scheduled until this Tuesday.

The Persian country has informed the regional mediators that will send negotiating team to Islamabad tomorrow for the second round of talks with the United Statessources familiar with the matter have told The Wall Street Journal.

Tehran has not publicly confirmed that it will send representatives to the meetings in Pakistan, and confusion over its participation in the talks has increased on Monday after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said at a press conference on Monday that there were no plans for a second round of negotiations in the Pakistani capital.

The two parties maintain cross accusations after this Sunday’s incident, when the United States opened fire and boarded an Iranian cargo ship, and from Tehran they remain distrustful and criticize Washington’s “contradictions.”

For its part, Pakistan hopes to get Iran to attend talks with the United States, as declared on Monday Reuters a senior Pakistani government official. “We have received a positive sign of Irann. The situation is uncertain, but we are trying to get them here when we start talks tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Highly unlikely”

Trumpstated this Monday that he considers it “highly unlikely” that there will be an extension of the two-week ceasefire that expires on Wednesday afternoon if an agreement is not reached. “I’m not going to rush in and sign a bad agreement. “We have all the time in the world,” Trump explained in an interview with Bloomberg.

“Es altamente improbable que lo prolongue”, ha respondido al ser preguntado por la tregua anunciada el 7 de abril. De hecho, ha subrayado que la tregua termina “el miércoles por la tarde”. “Miércoles por la tarde, hora de Washington”, ha apuntado.

El mandatario estadounidense se ha referido también al bloqueo impuesto a los puertos iraníes. “No voy a abrir. Quieren que lo abra. Los iraníes están deseosos de que se abra. No lo voy a abrir hasta que se firme un acuerdo“, ha argüido.

En cuanto a la posibilidad de que no haya acuerdo y de si reanudará los ataques entonces, ha respondido que “si no hay acuerdo, evidentemente esperaría” que se retomaran los ataques.

Negotiations on Lebanon

While the Iranian front seems stagnant, new steps for negotiation are being taken in Lebanon.

The second round of direct talks between the ambassador of Israel in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, and his counterpart lebaneseNada Hamadeh Moawad, will take place this Thursday, an Israeli official told The Times of Israelas confirmed by the US.

The meeting will take place at Department of State in Washington and will be attended by personnel from the Israeli, Lebanese and American sides, according to the official.

He president of LebanonJoseph Aoun, rHe ruled out Iran or other actors negotiating on his behalf and appointed former ambassador to the United States in the 1990s, Simon Karam, to head the delegation. The objective is to consolidate the end of hostilities and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the south of the country.

Last Tuesday, Leiter and Moawad met for about two hours, in which the meeting—brokered by U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubioand other American diplomats—the highest level to date between Israeli and Lebanese officials, and the first direct talks between the two neighboring countries in decades.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned “in the strongest terms” the destruction with hammers of a Catholic figure representing Jesus Christ on the cross at the hands of an Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon, calling it a criminal act.