President Donald Trump abruptly called off a planned trip by his top negotiators to Islamabad on Saturday, just as they were preparing to depart for a new round of indirect talks with Iran. "I've told my people a little while ago, they were getting ready to leave, and I said, 'Nope, you're not making an 18-hour flight to go there. We have all the cards,'" Trump said. "They can call us anytime they want, but you're not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing."
The decision to stand down envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner marked the second setback for Pakistan's mediation efforts in less than a week, after Vice President JD Vance also cancelled a planned trip to Islamabad earlier. Despite the US withdrawal, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi returned to Pakistan on Sunday, having briefly left for Oman on Saturday following his own round of meetings with Pakistani officials. Araghchi said he had shared with Pakistani mediators Iran's position on what he described as a "workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran," without providing details. He is expected to continue on to Russia.
The sticking points
The gap between the two sides remains wide. Iran has publicly rejected holding talks while the US naval blockade of its ports remains in force, a measure Washington is using to crush the Iranian economy and pressure Tehran into a deal. The fate of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which both sides are attempting to blockade, are among the central unresolved issues.
On Iran's nuclear programme, Trump has repeatedly insisted he will not allow Iran to possess a nuclear weapon. The problem he faces is partly of his own making. When he withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, describing it as "a horrible, one-sided deal," Iran embarked on an enrichment acceleration that has left it closer to a bomb than at any previous point. International inspectors now say Iran holds a total of 11 tons of uranium at various enrichment levels, enough with further purification to build up to 100 nuclear weapons. Most of that stockpile accumulated after the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.
Trump has in recent weeks used the phrase "nuclear dust" to describe what he claims remains of Iran's nuclear programme after US bombing. The term appeared designed to minimise the significance of what he was actually referring to: Iran's stockpile of near-bomb-grade uranium, stored in canisters roughly the size of large scuba tanks. The material is not dust. It is typically a gas when stored, becomes a solid at room temperature, and is highly toxic if it comes into contact with moisture.
A clash of styles
Analysts who have negotiated with Iran warn that Trump's approach sits in sharp tension with Iranian diplomatic culture. "Trump is impulsive and temperamental; Iran's leadership is stubborn and tenacious," said Robert Malley, who negotiated with Tehran during both the lead-up to the 2015 deal and a failed Biden-era effort to revive it. "Trump demands immediate results; Iran's leadership plays the long game. Trump insists on a flashy, headline-grabbing outcome; Iran's leadership sweats every detail. Trump believes brute force can compel obedience; Iran's leadership is prepared to endure enormous pain rather than concede on core interests."
The last major US-Iran negotiation, concluded 11 years ago, took the better part of two years. Trump has dismissed any comparison to that process. "The deal that we are making with Iran will be far better than the JCPOA," he said on social media. "It was a guaranteed road to a nuclear weapon, which will not, and cannot, happen with the deal we're working on."
Source: The New York Times