The president of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Saturday that he had suspended the trip of his envoys to the peace talks with Iran in Islamabad (Pakistan). First he said it with a few brief statements to two Washington media outlets, and then, . “Too much time wasted traveling, and too much work to do!” wrote Trump, who, once again, used the argument that if there is no progress in ending the war launched on February 28 by Washington together with Israel, the blame lies with the ayatollah regime, and the “confusion that reigns among its leaders.”
“No one knows who is in charge, not even themselves. Plus, we hold all the cards and they hold none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”, concludes the message on Truth Social.
The decision to abort the mission of his chief negotiators, the special envoy and personal friend of the president Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, was announced after the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, abandoned Islamabad after holding a long day of meetings with senior Pakistani military and civilian authorities, without waiting for the arrival of the United States Government envoys, scheduled for this Saturday, the day when Washington woke up with a ritual already familiar: with the hope that emissaries from the White House were preparing to travel but without certainty as to when or how they would do so.
Araqchi left the Asian country with his delegation heading to Oman, the next stop on a tour that will also take him to Russia. The Iranian minister had indicated from the beginning that his visit did not include any meeting with American representatives. That did not stop the White House from resuming talks with the enemy after the failure of the first round, a couple of weeks ago, also in Islamabad. The delegation was then led by the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance. This time, Trump preferred to keep that letter to himself, also given that the president of the Iranian Parliament, Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf, was not called upon to participate either. The White House considers Qalibaf to be the head of the Iranian delegation and Vance’s counterpart.
Kushner and Witkoff have been working with Iranian officials for months on a possible agreement on Tehran’s nuclear material, but, despite a marathon day of dialogue that lasted 21 hours. Vance explained that the failure was due to Tehran’s failure to accept Washington’s red lines and added, as a warning, that his Administration had conveyed a final offer to Iran.
