Islamabad, Pakistan – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected to fly to the Pakistani capital on Friday night with a small delegation, which officials said is an important step toward resuming direct talks with the United States aimed at ending their war.
Senior government officials in Islamabad confirmed the development to Al Jazeera shortly after several phone calls between Araghchi and Pakistani leaders on Friday.
At the moment, Iranian state news agency IRNA said Araghchi’s visit to Pakistan was bilateral – to talk to Pakistani officials, not for immediate talks with the US. After Islamabad, Araghchi will travel to Moscow and Muscat, IRNA said.
Nevertheless, a Pakistani official said that after several days of escalating standoff and rising tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, there is now a “high probability of success” between the US and Iran.
A US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance was expected to arrive in Islamabad earlier in the week for talks, but Iran then said it was not ready to return for talks, citing the naval blockade of its ports. Donald Trump imposed the blockade on April 13, two days after the first round of talks between the US and Iran in Islamabad ended inconclusively.
Since then, prospects for further talks have been in limbo – Iran insists the US needs to lift the blockade before it can return. Trump has so far refused to lift the blockade — even after Araghchi said Iran would reopen the strait, which it had effectively blocked to most ships since early March.
Against the backdrop of that standoff, tensions have escalated in recent days in the strait, where the US first captured an Iranian-flagged ship, followed by Iran capturing two ships and firing on a third.
By midweek it was uncertain whether a second round of US-Iran talks would take place.
That situation changed on Friday morning.
a flurry of calls
Araghchi spoke on phone with Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday morning.
According to Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, Dar underlined the importance of continued dialogue, while Araghchi lauded Pakistan’s “consistent and constructive facilitating role”.
Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, reported a separate call between Araghchi and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, although Pakistani officials neither confirmed nor denied it.
So far, the US has not confirmed whether the Trump administration will send a delegation to meet Araghchi and his team and who it will be. Vance was joined by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner at the April 11 talks in Islamabad.
But Iran’s delegation to those talks was led by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is widely considered closer to the influential Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s political leadership under President Massoud Pezeshkian than Araghchi.
Although officials say talks scheduled for the beginning of the week were postponed, the US is ready to participate in a second round of talks.
At least nine US aircraft have flown into the city this week carrying communications equipment, vehicles, security personnel and technical personnel to prepare for talks, whenever they take place.
It is unclear whether Iran’s apparent willingness to re-engage in the talks is a result of the economic pressure of the US naval blockade – which has prevented Iranian tankers from being exported to Asian economies – or the result of back-channel talks that have yielded meaningful breakthroughs.
Iran’s nuclear programme, US sanctions and the future of the Strait of Hormuz are key issues that have threatened to derail Pakistan’s mediation efforts in recent times.
For residents of Pakistan’s capital, the equation is simple – if frustrating: They want the talks to end as soon as possible, because of the disruption to their lives and confusion over whether talks will take place.
‘It’s like living in a torture chamber’
These days, Maheen Salim Farooqui starts every morning the same way. She checks her phone before getting out of bed. Not for news, but for instructions: has her office changed plans, has her children’s school gone online, is the road she uses to get to the bakery open or sealed behind some other security cordon.
“Your whole day is kept straight by a carefully planned structure,” the 41-year-old consultant and mother of two told Al Jazeera. “Recalibrating because of any level of uncertainty is tantamount to chaos. These last few weeks have been recalibrating non-stop.”
Ahead of an expected second round of talks earlier this week, authorities severely curtailed movement within the capital. The talks are expected to take place at the Serena Hotel, where the first round of talks took place inside the high-security red zone.
Even though Iran appeared to walk away from talks on Friday before showing a willingness to negotiate, security restrictions remained in place throughout the week.
Islamabad High Court lawyer Raja Talha Sarfaraz, 26, has not appeared before any bench for more than a week.
The court located inside the Red Zone has been sealed since last Thursday. Friday already marks a day off under government fuel economy measures, leaving not a single working court day for a week and no indication of when proceedings will resume.
For Sarfaraz, the disruption has been particularly acute. One of his clients was convicted and sentenced to death, his appeal was listed after a wait of ten months.
The court was closed when the date arrived. The client has been in jail for four years.
Another customer’s appeal, listed for Wednesday for the first time since September 2025, also fell on deaf ears. Sarfaraz does not know when it will be rescheduled.
“My second client has been in jail since 2017,” he said. “Before September, there were four instances when appeals were placed on the roster but were canceled for various reasons, and now this”.
Sarfaraz also teaches law, but his university lectures have been moved online, an arrangement he finds inadequate. The examination he was supposed to invigilate has been postponed.
Living in the suburbs of Islamabad, they have felt the impact of roads being closed since April 19, supply chains in the city blocked, making even regular grocery stores unreliable.
With courts closed and classes limited to screens, he has mostly been at home and relying on whatever supplies were available. “Life is in limbo,” he said. “It’s like living in a torture chamber, not knowing when it will end.”
Throughout Islamabad and neighboring Rawalpindi, a sense of suspension has settled into daily life.
In residential areas near Noor Khan Airbase, several roads have been sealed since April 19. The airport is where prominent foreign dignitaries land when visiting Islamabad.
The sprawling city reflects the same tension. The Blue Area, which is usually the commercial hub of Islamabad, has seen slow activity throughout the week.
Islamabad is not untouched by the disruption. The city has endured attacks by violent groups, political protests and visits by heads of state, leading to road closures and routine disruptions.
What has disappointed residents this time is the scale and repetition.
The first wave of restrictions for the initial round of talks arrived in early April, and some measures were never fully lifted before the next phase of uncertainty began.
‘Things will get worse before they get better’
Pakistan has found itself at the center of one of the most consequential diplomatic efforts in recent years.
Hosting the talks between Washington and Tehran holds significance for the country’s global standing and its relations with creditors and investors.
But for residents, the costs of maintaining that role are becoming harder to ignore.
Pakistan remains under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund program. Gasoline prices have increased by at least 14 percent, and rolling blackouts are back. After years of economic stress, many are now facing another layer of disruption.
For Farooqui, uncertainty operates on multiple levels. There is great fear of war which has destabilized the global economy since February.
Then there’s the smaller, everyday version: will the bakery aisle stay open, will school go online without notice, will plans made the night before stick.
“It was a practice to check emails and messages every night to see if anything had changed, whether roads would be open, whether the government had announced anything, whether anyone knew anything new,” he said.
“We actually had a moment where my daughter’s school announced it would be physical, and then 30 minutes later, immediately declined and went online, because there is no clarity on what’s happening,” Farooqui said.
She said she has tried to keep her routine organized while explaining to her children why their school schedules keep changing, sometimes within the same morning.
“Sometimes the simple act of being able to focus on your work overshadows the reality of our times,” he said.
“To be honest, I don’t see things getting better any time soon. If anything, it’s more likely that things will get worse before they get better.”
