US-Iran peace talks set for Islamabad as Strait of Hormuz blockade persists

A ceasefire that is not quite holding. On Friday, the Strait of Hormuz remained sealed—a chokepoint through which, before the war, roughly 140 ships passed each day carrying up to 20 million barrels of crude oil. Now only Iranian vessels moved freely. A single Iranian supertanker, capable of carrying 2 million barrels, was among the few to cross. The blockade has created the largest disruption to global energy supplies in modern history, yet the two-day-old truce between the United States and Iran had done almost nothing to reopen it.

The ceasefire itself was fragile, undermined almost immediately by accusations of bad faith from both sides. Israel and Hezbollah continued trading fire in Lebanon—Israeli forces had launched one of the war's heaviest strikes just hours after the truce was announced, killing more than 250 people in densely populated areas. Iran said this violated the agreement. The United States and Israel countered that Lebanon was never part of the deal. Yet on Thursday, Israel shifted course, announcing it would open separate negotiations with the Lebanese government aimed at disarming Hezbollah and ending the conflict. The contradiction hung in the air: a ceasefire that did not cover the war still raging.

President Donald Trump, impatient, took to social media to accuse Iran of doing a "very poor job" of allowing oil through the strait. "That is not the agreement we have!" he wrote. Vice President JD Vance, preparing to leave for Islamabad, struck a different note in public—measured, but with an edge. "We're looking forward to the negotiation. I think it's going to be positive," he told reporters. Then the warning: "If they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find the negotiating team is not that receptive." He was heading to Pakistan, where the first substantive talks between the two countries would begin on Saturday.

Islamabad had been locked down for the occasion. A three-kilometer security perimeter, a "red zone," had been established around the Serena Hotel in the city's center, where both delegations would stay. Pakistani officials said little about the arrival of Iran's delegation, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. Vance's team was expected to arrive in time for Saturday's opening. Advance teams from both countries were already in place, and Pakistan—which had mediated the ceasefire—was relaying messages between them on Friday. A Pakistani source close to the discussions said everything was on track, and noted that the reduction in violence in Lebanon was "a good sign."

But the gap between what each side wanted remained vast. Iran's demands included the lifting of sanctions and recognition of its authority over the Strait of Hormuz itself—the right to control access and levy transit fees on passing ships. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who had not appeared in public since taking office after his father's death on the first day of the war, issued a defiant statement on Thursday. "We will certainly not leave unpunished the criminal aggressors who attacked our country," he said. The United States, by contrast, was expected to push Iran to surrender its enriched uranium, halt further enrichment, abandon its missile program, and end support for regional allies. Trump had declared victory in the conflict, yet Iran still possessed missiles and drones capable of striking neighboring countries and held more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. Its clerical leadership remained intact despite internal unrest.

The human toll of the war continued to mount. In Lebanon, Israeli military operations had displaced roughly one-fifth of the population. On Friday morning, Israeli forces struck 10 rocket launchers in Lebanese territory. Hezbollah responded with a missile toward Israel, triggering air raid sirens. The group had initially signaled it would pause attacks under the ceasefire but resumed fighting after Israeli strikes earlier in the week. Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli military infrastructure in the northern city of Haifa.

Meanwhile, the economic impact was beginning to show. Consumer price data for March, due to be released later on Friday, was expected to reflect the war's early toll on inflation. The blockade of the strait, the displacement of hundreds of thousands, the continued military operations—all of it was feeding into the machinery of global commerce and cost. The talks in Islamabad would determine whether any of it could be unwound, or whether the ceasefire would simply be a pause before the fighting resumed.