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U.S. President Donald Trump is dispatching his Iran negotiating team, led by Vice President JD Vance, to Pakistan for talks, the White House told reporters on Wednesday, adding that the first round of negotiations would take place on Saturday.
With several of Iran’s veteran political leaders killed in the war, Iran’s delegation is expected to be led by parliament speaker and former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
The confirmation of the talks came after relief over a truce between the United States and Iran gave way to alarm that fighting was still raging across the region, as Israel launched its biggest attacks yet on Lebanon, and Iran struck Gulf neighbors’ oil facilities.
World financial markets rose after Trump announced the agreement late on Tuesday, two hours before a deadline he had set for Iran to open the blockaded Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of its “whole civilisation.”
But even as Israel and the United States paused their attacks on Iran, Israel escalated its parallel war with Iran-aligned Hezbollah in Lebanon, launching its heaviest strikes yet, sending huge columns of smoke above Beirut as buildings crumpled.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire did not include Hezbollah and that Israel would “continue to strike them.”
Netanyahu said Israel had achieved many of its objectives in the war with Iran, but still had others to accomplish. He said that those could be reached either through a U.S.–Iran agreement or by resuming the military campaign, stressing that Israel had its “finger on the trigger” and was prepared to return to fighting at “any moment.”
Iran’s Tasnim news agency cited an unnamed source warning that Iran will withdraw from the ceasefire if attacks on Lebanon continue.
Lebanon’s civil defense service said 254 people had been killed in Israel’s strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday. The highest toll was in the capital Beirut, where Israeli strikes killed 91 people, it said. Residents said some of the Israeli strikes had come without the usual warnings for civilians to evacuate.
Despite concerns over the durability of the ceasefire, Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices which had risen by more than 50 per cent since the war began, was down around 14 per cent on the day, at US$95.20 a barrel on Wednesday.
U.S. stocks jumped to near one-month highs, joining a major global relief rally.
