Islamabad, Mar 30: Pakistan announced Sunday that it will soon host talks between the US and Iran, though there was no immediate word from Washington or Tehran, and it was unclear whether discussions on the month-long war would be direct or indirect.
“Pakistan is very happy that both Iran and the US have expressed their confidence in Pakistan to facilitate the talks. Pakistan will be honoured to host and facilitate meaningful talks between the two sides in the coming days,” Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said after top diplomats from Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia met in Islamabad.
Pakistan later said the diplomats had departed for their home countries. The talks were originally scheduled to continue Monday.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not answer questions, and Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment.
Islamabad has emerged as a mediator, having relatively good ties with Washington and Tehran, after what Pakistani officials call weeks of quiet diplomacy.
Earlier, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, dismissed the talks in Pakistan as a cover after some 2,500 US Marines trained in amphibious landings arrived in the Middle East.
He said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners forever,” according to state media.
Iran also threatened to attack homes of US and Israeli “commanders and political officials” in the region. A spokesperson for the Iranian military’s joint command, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, cited the “targeting of residential homes of the Iranian people in various cities” and other “malicious actions,” state media reported.
“We don’t know at what moment our homes could be targeted,” said Razzak Saghir al-Mousawi, 71, describing relentless airstrikes as Iranians crossing into Iraq urged the United States to end the war. “I am definitely afraid.”
Meanwhile in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military will widen its invasion of Lebanon, expanding the “existing security strip” in that country’s south while targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. No details were released.
Over 1 million Lebanese have been displaced in the war. One of them, Mohammad Doghman, called Israel “an expansionist state.”
The war has threatened global supplies of oil, natural gas and fertilizer and disrupted air travel.
Iran’s grip on the strategic Strait of Hormuz has shaken markets and prices. Now the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels’ entry into the war could threaten shipping on another crucial waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb strait to the Red Sea.
Israel’s military said that its air force had intercepted two drones launched from Yemen very early on Monday morning.
Late on Sunday, Israel’s military said that over the past 24 hours its fighter jets had dropped more than 120 munitions in Tehran, targeting sites used for weapons research, development and production. Around the same time, Iran’s state television said power was back in areas of Tehran that had experienced outages after attacks on electricity facilities.
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for launching their first attack in the current war — a missile fired at Israel, which was also intercepted — early on Saturday morning.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in the war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran that triggered Iranian attacks against Israel and US military assets and other sites in neighbouring Gulf Arab states. The war continues on the digital front as well.
Egypt says meetings aim for direct dialogue
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Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the meetings in Pakistan are aimed at opening a “direct dialogue” between the US and Iran, which have largely communicated through mediators.
The war began with US and Israeli strikes during indirect talks. Pakistan said the foreign ministers met Sunday without US or Israeli participation.
Iranian officials have rejected a US 15-point “action list” as a framework for a possible peace deal and publicly dismissed the idea of negotiating under pressure. But Iran’s state broadcaster has reported that Tehran drafted its own five-point proposal reportedly calling for a halt to killing Iranian officials, guarantees against future attacks, reparations and Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran has eased some restrictions on commercial ships in the strait, agreeing late Saturday to allow 20 more Pakistani-flagged vessels to pass through. It “sends a clear signal that Iran remains open for business with the world, provided the United States abandons coercion,” said Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Iran.
An adviser to the United Arab Emirates, Anwar Gargash, called for any settlement to the war to include “clear guarantees” that Iranian attacks on neighbors will not be repeated. He said Iran’s government has become “the main threat” to Persian Gulf security, and called for compensation for attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Death toll climbs
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In Lebanon, officials said more than 1,200 people have been killed. There were fears of more deaths after Netanyahu, speaking on a visit to northern Israel, announced the expanded invasion. Hezbollah “still has residual capability to fire rockets at us,” he said.
Iranian authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed in the Islamic Republic, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.
In Iraq, where Iranian-supported militia groups have entered the conflict, 80 members of the security forces have died.
In Gulf states, 20 people have been killed. Four have been killed in the occupied West Bank. Thirteen US service members have been killed in the war. (AP)
