ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iranian ambassador to Pakistan said on Thursday that a delegation from Tehran would arrive in Islamabad for “serious talks” with the US, however, Reza Amiri Moghadam later deleted the statement. The announcement comes as Iranian officials previously warned they could withdraw from the Pakistan-brokered, two-week ceasefire with Washington if Israeli attacks on Lebanon continue.
In the now-deleted post on X, Moghadam said that “despite skepticism among Iranian public opinion due to repeated ceasefire violations by the Israeli regime, which aim to sabotage the diplomatic initiative, and at the invitation of the Honorable Prime Minister [of Pakistan] Shehbaz Sharif, the Iranian delegation will arrive tonight in Islamabad for serious talks based on the 10 points proposed by Iran.”
Sharif said in a late Tuesday post on X that “diplomatic efforts for a peaceful settlement” of the Iran-Israel-US war “are progressing steadily, strongly, and powerfully, with the potential to lead to substantive results in the near future.” He urged “all warring parties to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks to allow diplomacy to achieve the conclusive termination of the war, in the interest of long-term peace and stability in the region.”
However, the Pakistani premier said on Wednesday that “violations of the ceasefire have been reported at few places across the conflict zone which undermine the spirit of the peace process,” and called on “all parties to exercise restraint and respect the ceasefire for two weeks, as agreed upon, so that diplomacy can take a lead role towards peaceful settlement of the conflict.”
The remarks came after the Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had “completed the largest coordinated strike across Lebanon since the start of Operation Roaring Lion,” the name of its campaign against Iran, which began in parallel with Washington’s Operation Epic Fury against Tehran in late February.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that “in 10 minutes,” its forces targeted “more than 100 Hezbollah headquarters, military arrays, and command-and-control centers in Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, and southern Lebanon.” Beirut’s health ministry reported late Wednesday that Israeli strikes had caused “182 deaths and 890 injuries,” mostly civilians, according to preliminary figures.
Since early March, Israel has carried out hundreds of air raids on what it says are targets of the Iran-backed Hezbollah Movement in Lebanon. The escalation began when Hezbollah launched an initial attack on Israel to “avenge” the killing of Iran’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei (1939-2026), who was killed alongside other senior officials during US-Israeli strikes in Tehran on February 28.
While US President Trump announced on Tuesday that he had approved a two-week ceasefire proposal presented by Pakistan, Israel maintains that the truce does not cover Lebanon - a stance supported by Washington but contested by both Islamabad and Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday shared remarks by the Pakistani PM, Sharif, highlighting that the ceasefire noted the approval of the “the United States of America, along with their allies,” to the “immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon.”
Tehran’s chief diplomat added that “the Iran–U.S. Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S. must choose—ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both.” He added, “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
Similarly, Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf - who was reportedly set to lead the Iranian delegation to Islamabad - said on Wednesday that three key clauses of a 10-point proposal submitted by Tehran to Washington had been violated ahead of the Islamabad talks.
Ghalibaf said in a statement that the proposal includes the cessation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, a ban on further violations of Iranian airspace, and Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment. He claimed that all three provisions have already been breached.
"In such [a] situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiation is unreasonable,” he noted.
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