The standoff between the U.S. and Iran is intensifying ahead of a face-to-face meeting, with Tehran raising new preconditions for cease-fire talks and President Trump warning of further military action.
The 11th-hour brinkmanship shows the difficult road ahead for discussions between two longtime foes. They are racing to resolve disputes in the next two weeks that have stymied negotiators for more than two decades—or at least make enough progress to extend negotiations. Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz adds a volatile new dimension to talks that also cover its nuclear program, missile systems and support for regional militias.
Iranian leaders and Trump traded barbs ahead of the meeting, underscoring deep mistrust between the two sides.
Iran demanded a cease-fire in Israel’s separate fight with the Tehran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and on Friday added a precondition: the release of U.S.-blocked Iranian assets.
“These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin,” said Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, on social media.
Trump, meanwhile, signaled growing impatience with Iran’s failure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a condition of the two-week cease-fire struck this past week. Tehran has threatened to destroy ships that pass without its permission and has kept traffic at a trickle despite the halt in fighting, while continuing to demand tolls from some vessels, said mediators and ship brokers.
“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 wrote on social media. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
The comments came as Vice President JD Vance was flying for talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he and the envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were set to meet Saturday with the Iranian team of Ghalibaf; the national security chief, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr; and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Talks are expected to focus first on the status of the Strait of Hormuz and what Iran will demand for freeing up traffic there. Looming after that are discussions over Iran’s more than 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium—fuel that if processed further could be used to make nuclear weapons—as well as its ability to enrich more fuel.
Iran will be looking for sanctions relief in return, an especially acute need now following the destructiveness of the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign.
Progress on those issues could lead to an extension of the cease-fire and set up further talks. That will almost certainly be needed to resolve complex issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program and regional role.
Iran is “playing hardball here because they believe that they have the upper hand,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director of the Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution organization. “The reality is that the U.S. hasn’t been able to figure out a solution to neutralize the superpower that Iran has been able to secure in this conflict, which is its control over the Strait of Hormuz.”
Vaez said Ghalibaf’s doubling of preconditions on Friday was likely aimed at shoring up Iran’s key demand—that Israel end its pummeling of Hezbollah, the once-mighty regional militia ally of Tehran. Vaez said it could be another example of Iran’s being too tough at the negotiating table for its own good.
“They do drive a hard bargain but often fail at demonstrating the flexibility when they must,” Vaez said. “And that results in squandering more opportunities than gaining ground in negotiations.”
Despite the public threats, there have been signs of compromise around the edges as efforts to get a diplomatic track going played out this past week. Iran initially laid out a list of 10 demands as its price for stopping the war. They included recognition of its control of the Strait of Hormuz and the right to enrich uranium, an end to sanctions, war reparations and the departure of U.S. forces from the region.
Mediators in the talks and an Iranian diplomat said Tehran later softened its positions on enrichment levels, compensation for wartime damage and U.S. troops in the Middle East. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that Iran’s more-reasonable and condensed demands made it possible for the U.S. to agree to the cease-fire.
After escalating drone and missile attacks on Persian Gulf states on the first day of the cease-fire to protest the fighting in Lebanon and an attack on an Iranian refinery, Tehran effectively stopped the shooting Thursday and Friday.
Michael Singh, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the most likely outcome of the talks is a minimalist deal that swaps some Iranian commitments not to develop nuclear weapons and to open the strait for some minor sanctions relief and a halt to the fighting.
Tehran has deployed brinkmanship throughout its many years of negotiating with the U.S. It long absorbed global sanctions pressure while building up its nuclear program until Washington in secret talks in 2013 accepted it could live with an agreement that allowed Iran to enrich uranium at home.
While the Biden administration worked to revive that nuclear accord after Trump withdrew in 2018, Iran moved rapidly to resume production of uranium metal and started enriched uranium to near weapons-grade.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com, Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com