ISLAMABAD: US Vice President JD Vance reached Switzerland’s mountain redoubt before dawn on Sunday, stepping off a government aircraft at Emmen Air Base outside Lucerne at 5:59 a.m. local time to open what he described as the first formal round of negotiations since the United States and Iran signed an interim peace agreement last week — and to confront, almost immediately, the twin crises threatening to unravel it.
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Iran shuts Strait of Hormuz again as Israel kills 32 in Lebanon — and the peace deal teeters
ISLAMABAD: Iran announced on Saturday that it was once again closing the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic, citing Israel’s relentless bombardment of southern Lebanon as a violation of the memorandum of understanding signed with the United States only days ago.
Lebanon violence forces postponement of Switzerland summit as fragile Middle East accord faces its first crisis
ISLAMABAD: A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect on Friday afternoon after a morning of deadly fighting in Lebanon threatened to collapse the diplomatic architecture of the most significant Middle East peace effort in a generation.
PM Sharif tells President Pezeshkian peace deal will ‘go a long way’ towards rebuilding Iran as Trump signs accord at Versailles
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told his Iranian counterpart President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday that the peace agreement brokered by Islamabad between Washington and Tehran would “go a long way” towards rebuilding Iran, as Donald Trump signed the deal at a candlelit dinner with Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles and critics on both sides of the Atlantic rounded on its terms.
Trump and Iran sign Islamabad accord to end four-month war — with Pakistan taking a bow
ISLAMABAD: Donald Trump put his signature to a ceasefire agreement with Iran at a candlelit dinner in the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday night, bringing to a formal close a four-month conflict that has convulsed energy markets, stoked inflation and pushed the Middle East to the edge of a broader catastrophe — while warning, in the same breath, that he was ready to resume bombing if Tehran failed to comply.
Pakistan brokered US-Iran peace deal ‘without a shot being fired’, security officials say
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership played a decisive role in brokering the memorandum of understanding signed between Washington and Tehran this week, senior security officials have said, insisting the country acted not out of narrow self-interest but from a genuine commitment to regional stability — and doing so, they stressed, entirely out of the spotlight.
Pakistan brokered the deal that ended the US-Iran war; Geneva ceremony set for Friday
ISLAMABAD: Standing before the National Assembly on Monday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif offered what amounted to an unusually candid accounting of how close the world had come, again and again, to watching the fragile peace between the United States and Iran slip away entirely.
Trump and Iran agree framework to end war — but the devil is buried in the detail
ISLAMABAD: The United States and Iran declared an end to months of devastating war on Sunday night, announcing a framework agreement that would halt military operations, lift America’s naval blockade of Iranian ports and reopen the Strait of Hormuz — the critical Gulf waterway that Tehran has effectively closed to global shipping since the conflict began in February.
Iran and US near accord to end war, but split over timing persists
ISLAMABAD: The United States and Iran edged toward a preliminary peace agreement on Saturday, only to fall into a public dispute over when — or whether — it would be signed, as Pakistan set a Sunday virtual ceremony, Tehran said that was premature, and President Trump posted on Truth Social that the signing was 24 hours away and the Strait of Hormuz would open to all shipping the moment it happened.
Pakistan says Iran-US peace deal hours away, but skirmishes flare in the Strait
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday that a peace agreement to end the three-month war between the United States and Iran could be finalised within 24 hours, a statement of striking optimism that landed even as American warships were shooting down Iranian drones over the Strait of Hormuz.