U.S.-Iran peace summit in Pakistan ends with no deal, talks to continue

The first round of peace talks between the United States and Iran reportedly ended on Saturday, with no resolution, as the war entered its seventh week.

An Iranian delegate source familiar with the negotiations told MS NOW that the first phase of the high-stakes talks had ended and that negotiations were expected to continue on Sunday. The source said the marathon talks — which lasted well past midnight — got tense in the last few hours, but said that they are in a “good position.”

The peace summit took place as two American warships transited through the Strait of Hormuz for the first time since the start of the conflict. The U.S. Central Command said the warships were taking part in a mission to clear the waterway of sea mines put in place by Iran.

The tri-lateral negotiations seek to cement a two-week ceasefire that began Tuesday but which has come under strain as Iran continues to block most shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical chokepoint for oil and gas supplies. Tehran also reiterated a list of preconditions for the talks.

The U.S. delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, and the Iranian one, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, discussed with Pakistan how to advance the ceasefire already threatened by deep disagreements and Israel’s continued attacks against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose health ministry said the death toll has surpassed 2,000.

Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, the most direct U.S. contact had been in 2013 when then-President Barack Obama called newly elected President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. The most recent highest-level meetings were between Secretary of State John Kerry and counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif during negotiations over the program.

Now talks feature Vance, a reluctant defender of the war who has little diplomatic experience and warned Iran not to “try and play us,” and Qalibaf, a former commander with Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard who has issued some of Iran’s most fiery statements since fighting began.

The meeting comes amid heightened tensions over conflicting reports concerning the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Central Command said on Saturday that forces began setting conditions for clearing mines in the strait, as two U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers conducted operations. The USS Frank E. Peterson and the USS Michael Murphy transited the strait and operated in the Arabian Gulf as part of a broader mission to clear sea mines previously laid by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X.

“Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce,” Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, said in a statement.

“We’re sweeping the strait. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me,” U.S. President Donald Trump told journalists as high-stakes talks continued into the night and the time approached 2 a.m. in Pakistan.

Iran’s state media, however, earlier said Iran forced a U.S. military ship that was attempting to cross the strait to turn around. MS Now later reported that commercial maritime traffic systems showing the USS Michael Murphy crossing the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf weren’t reliable.

Separately, a senior Iranian source told Reuters the U.S. had agreed to release frozen assets held in ⁠Qatar and other foreign banks, but a U.S. official immediately denied the report.

But question marks hang over the ceasefire and the ultimate outcome of the talks.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said Tehran has presented negotiators with four “non-negotiable conditions” to mediators in Islamabad.

They include: “[F]ull sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, complete war reparations by the aggressor, unconditional release of blocked assets, and a durable ceasefire across the entire West-Asia Region,” Tasnim said on its X account.

Ghalibaf warned Friday that the scheduled negotiations to end the war with the U.S. cannot begin unless Israel halts attacks on Lebanon and unless the U.S.