US and Iran prepare for high-level talks as Israel and Hezbollah trade more fire

With the cease­fire in Iran still shaky, U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance head­ed Fri­day to Pak­istan for high-lev­el talks with Iran­ian of­fi­cials, as Is­rael and Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants trad­ed fire and Tehran main­tained its stran­gle­hold on the Strait of Hor­muz.

Many is­sues could de­rail the truce and the ne­go­ti­a­tions aimed at mak­ing a broad­er deal to stop the fight­ing per­ma­nent­ly.

Iran’s se­mi-of­fi­cial Tas­nim news agency, close to the para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard, claimed that the talks set for Sat­ur­day would not hap­pen un­less Is­rael stopped its at­tacks in Lebanon. And U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said on his so­cial me­dia plat­form that Iran has no lever­age ex­cept to re­strict ship traf­fic in the strait, through which 20% of the world’s trad­ed oil once passed.

Kuwait, mean­while, said it was tar­get­ed by sev­en drone at­tacks since Thurs­day that it blamed on Iran and its mili­tia al­lies in the re­gion. Though the Guard de­nied launch­ing any as­sault, it has car­ried out at­tacks across the Mideast in the past that it did not claim.

Prepa­ra­tions for the talks be­tween Iran and the U.S. ap­peared to be mov­ing for­ward, with Vance board­ing Air Force Two for the long flight to Is­lam­abad.

Else­where, ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Is­rael and Lebanon were ex­pect­ed to be­gin Tues­day in the U.S. cap­i­tal, Lebanese Pres­i­dent Joseph Aoun’s of­fice said Fri­day. Beirut is keen to hold di­rect talks to end the war be­tween Is­rael and Hezbol­lah, but un­der a cease­fire sim­i­lar to the one with Iran.

Be­fore his de­par­ture, Vance said he be­lieved the ne­go­ti­a­tions with Iran will be “pos­i­tive.”

But he added, “If they’re go­ing to try and play us, then they’re go­ing to find that the ne­go­ti­at­ing team is not that re­cep­tive.”

In Is­lam­abad, se­cu­ri­ty forces locked down key parts of the Pak­istani cap­i­tal, erect­ing bar­ri­cades along routes from the air­port to the city.

Hours lat­er, the Iran­ian del­e­ga­tion led by Par­lia­ment Speak­er Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf ar­rived in Is­lam­abad, Iran­ian state TV re­port­ed. The del­e­ga­tion in­clud­ed se­cu­ri­ty, po­lit­i­cal, mil­i­tary, eco­nom­ic and le­gal teams. The re­port said ne­go­ti­a­tions will be­gin on­ly if the oth­er side ac­cepts Iran’s pre­con­di­tions.

Ear­li­er in the day, Qal­ibaf post­ed on so­cial me­dia that two points he said had been mu­tu­al­ly agreed on — a cease­fire in Lebanon and the re­lease of blocked Iran­ian as­sets — have yet to be im­ple­ment­ed.

“These two mat­ters must be ful­filled be­fore ne­go­ti­a­tions be­gin,” he wrote.

Is­rael and Lebanon will have di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions

Is­rael’s in­sis­tence that the cease­fire in Iran does not in­clude a pause in its fight­ing with Hezbol­lah has threat­ened to sink the deal. The mil­i­tant group joined the war in sup­port of its backer, Iran.

The day the truce was an­nounced, Is­rael pound­ed Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 peo­ple, ac­cord­ing to the Lebanese Health Min­istry. It was the dead­liest day in the coun­try since the war be­gan Feb. 28.

Trump said Thurs­day that he had asked Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu to di­al back the strikes.

Then on Fri­day, Is­raeli war­planes struck near a state se­cu­ri­ty of­fice in the south­ern town of Nabatieh, killing 13 of­fi­cers, ac­cord­ing to the Lebanese pres­i­dent’s of­fice. Is­raeli forces said they al­so hit about 10 rock­et launch­ers in Lebanon that had fired to­ward north­ern Is­rael.

A day ear­li­er, Ne­tanyahu said he au­tho­rized the ne­go­ti­a­tions with Lebanon with the aim of dis­arm­ing Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants and es­tab­lish­ing re­la­tions be­tween the neigh­bours, which have tech­ni­cal­ly been at war since Is­rael was es­tab­lished in 1948.

Aoun’s of­fice con­firmed that the two sides were set to ne­go­ti­ate af­ter Lebanon and Is­rael’s am­bas­sadors to the U.S. held a call with Wash­ing­ton’s am­bas­sador to Lebanon to dis­cuss terms. The U.S. State De­part­ment will me­di­ate.

In a first state­ment since Is­rael an­nounced di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions with Lebanon, Hezbol­lah chief Naim Kassem urged Lebanese of­fi­cials to stop of­fer­ing “free con­ces­sions,” but he did not take a clear stance on the talks.

Two days af­ter Is­rael’s bar­rage, peo­ple sift­ed through the wreck­age of their homes, try­ing to sal­vage fur­ni­ture and per­son­al me­men­tos. Some ex­pressed grat­i­tude that they did not lose loved ones.

“There is no sub­sti­tute for fam­i­ly,” said Wis­sam Tabi­la, 35. “Every­thing else can be re­placed.”

Strait of Hor­muz re­mains a stick­ing point

Iran’s clo­sure of the Strait of Hor­muz has sent oil prices sky­rock­et­ing, dri­ven stocks down and roiled the world econ­o­my. Tehran’s con­trol over the wa­ter­way has proved its biggest strate­gic ad­van­tage in the war.

The spot price of Brent crude, the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard, was around $97 Fri­day, up more than 30% since the war start­ed.

Be­fore the con­flict, over 100 ships passed through the strait each day — many car­ry­ing oil to Asia. With the cease­fire in place, on­ly 12 have been record­ed pass­ing through.

Trump said Iran has lit­tle clout in the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“The Ira­ni­ans don’t seem to re­al­ize they have no cards, oth­er than a short term ex­tor­tion of the World by us­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­ways,” Trump post­ed Fri­day. “The on­ly rea­son they are alive to­day is to ne­go­ti­ate!”

Ques­tions linger about mis­sile and nu­clear pro­grams

Ques­tions al­so re­main over the fate of Iran’s mis­sile and nu­clear pro­grams, which the U.S. and Is­rael sought to elim­i­nate in go­ing to war.

The U.S. in­sists Iran must nev­er be able to build nu­clear weapons and wants to re­move Tehran’s stock­pile of high­ly en­riched ura­ni­um, which could be used to make them. Iran in­sists its pro­gram is peace­ful.

Trump has said that the U.S. would work with Iran to re­move the ura­ni­um, though Tehran has not con­firmed that.

More than 3,000 peo­ple have been killed in Iran, a top Iran­ian of­fi­cer told the state-run Iran news­pa­per. Iran’s gov­ern­ment has not pro­vid­ed any de­fin­i­tive death toll from the war.

In Lebanon, at least 1,953 peo­ple have been killed and 1 mil­lion have been dis­placed. Over a dozen peo­ple have died in Gulf Arab states and the oc­cu­pied West Bank, while 23 civil­ians were killed in Is­rael. Thir­teen U.S. ser­vice mem­bers have been killed.

In oth­er de­vel­op­ments, Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy said Ukrain­ian forces shot down Iran­ian‑de­signed Sha­hed drones in sev­er­al Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries dur­ing the Iran war. The mis­sions, car­ried out with do­mes­ti­cal­ly pro­duced in­ter­cep­tor drones, were part of ef­forts to help part­ners counter the same weapons Rus­sia us­es in Ukraine, he said. —IS­LAM­ABAD (AP)

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Sto­ry by JON GAM­BRELL, SAM MED­NICK and MU­NIR AHMED | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Jon Gam­brell re­port­ed from Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, and Sam Med­nick from Tel Aviv, Is­rael. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Will Weis­sert and Aamer Mad­hani in Wash­ing­ton; Han­nah Schoen­baum in Salt Lake City; and Ka­reem Chehayeb and Hus­sein Mal­la in Beirut con­tributed to this re­port.