wrote<\/a>, referring to Iran\u2019s control over the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n\u201cThe only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting in Lebanon continues<\/h2>\n
The Trump administration has credited Tuesday\u2019s ceasefire agreement with averting a major US escalation in the war.<\/p>\n
The US president had threatened a \u201cwhole civilization will die tonight\u201d just hours before the deal was reached.<\/p>\n
Still, the Trump administration has not yet released a clear picture of the initial framework it agreed to with Iran, though it has maintained that it is different from the 10-point plan published by Iran.<\/p>\n
Analysts have said there are yawning gaps between the two sides over issues related to Iran\u2019s future control of the Strait of Hormuz, frozen Iranian assets, the future of Iran\u2019s nuclear programme and Israel\u2019s invasion of Lebanon.<\/p>\n
The US and Israel have argued that a ceasefire in Lebanon was not part of the deal, contradicting Iran and Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Still, the US has signalled Israel may dial down its attacks. On Thursday, Trump told an Israeli reporter that he encouraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make Israeli military operations against Hezbollah more \u201clow-key\u201d in the run-up to the ceasefire talks.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s remarks came after Israeli attacks killed at least 300 people nationwide on Wednesday, in one of the deadliest days of the offensive.<\/p>\n
Still, Israeli attacks continued on Friday. Al Jazeera correspondent Obaida Hitto reported from the city of Tyre that there is \u201cno sign of any dialback or slowdown here in southern Lebanon\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kuwait, meanwhile, said it had \u201cdealt with\u201d seven drones fired from Iran into its airspace over the past 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Vance predicts \u2018positive\u2019 outcome from talks<\/h2>\n
Despite the latest threats, US Vice President JD Vance said he expected \u201cpositive\u201d results from the talks as he departed for Pakistan on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
Though he is leading the US delegation, Vance added he had received \u201cpretty clear guidelines\u201d from Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we are certainly willing to extend an open hand, that\u2019s one thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re going to try to play us, they\u2019re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vance, who is seen as a representative of the non-interventionist branch of Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d (MAGA) movement, was tapped to lead the US delegation amid Iran\u2019s distrust of US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n
Witkoff and Kushner had previously led two rounds of indirect talks on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
The first round of negotiations was derailed when Israel initiated a 12-day war on Iran in June 2025, which ended with the US striking three of Iran\u2019s key nuclear sites.<\/p>\n
The second round was scuttled when the\u00a0US and Israel launched the latest war on February 28.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States delegation has already departed for Saturday\u2019s planned ceasefire negotiations on the US-Israel war with Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan, where the government confirmed Iran\u2019s delegation had arrived. But on Friday, new tensions emerged between top US and Iranian officials, throwing the upcoming talks \u2014 already shrouded in deep distrust \u2014 into doubt. Recommended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}