Iran's negotiating team informed the American side through Pakistan — which has been serving as a back-channel mediator — that it will not travel to Islamabad on Wednesday. According to Tasnim News Agency, the decision has been "finalized." Tehran's stated reason is that the United States has systematically violated the 10-point framework that both sides accepted as the basis for ceasefire and subsequent talks. Most critically, Iran points to Washington's refusal to lift a naval blockade it has imposed on Iranian waters — a measure Tehran has formally condemned as an "act of war."
"The US is hindering any proper agreement," Tasnim reported, citing relevant Iranian sources. "Iran will not join the American show." According to the same sources, the first round of Islamabad talks already ended in deadlock after the American delegation raised demands that Iran viewed as departures from the agreed framework — demands that, in Tehran's reading, reflected Washington's attempt to compensate diplomatically for what it describes as U.S. military failure. When Iran subsequently reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping as a goodwill gesture consistent with the ceasefire framework, Washington reportedly maintained its naval blockade rather than reciprocating.
Yet Iran has not slammed the door entirely. Saeed Iravani, Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations, told the Kurdish broadcaster Rudaw in New York on Tuesday that Tehran has already received signals from Washington indicating a possible willingness to end the blockade. "We have received some signs that the US is ready to break [the naval blockade], and as soon as they do, I think the next round of negotiations will take place in Islamabad," Iravani said. He described the lifting of the blockade as a firm Iranian precondition for any second-round engagement.
Asked whether a new military escalation with the United States was on the horizon, Iravani did not rule it out. "It depends on them," he said. "They initiated the war against us and we are ready. And if they want to sit at the negotiating table, discuss, and find a political solution, they will find us ready." The double message — readiness for both war and peace — encapsulates Tehran's posture: keeping all options open while attaching concrete preconditions to any return to talks.
The diplomatic impasse unfolded against a backdrop of continued domestic security operations. On the same day, Iranian authorities announced the execution of Mahdi Farid, a former head of a civil defense committee management section at a sensitive Iranian organization, who was convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. According to Tasnim, Farid had contacted Mossad through cyberspace, transferred organizational access codes, structural charts, and personnel data to Israeli handlers, and twice attempted — under Mossad guidance — to infect his organization's internal networks using hardware and malware supplied by Israeli operatives. He was also paid in foreign currency for his cooperation. His death sentence was confirmed by Iran's Supreme Court. The execution signals that Tehran remains on heightened counterintelligence alert even as it navigates the diplomatic track.
The broader context of the ceasefire itself also remains contested. Reports circulating in Iranian media question what U.S. President Donald Trump's stated indefinite extension of the ceasefire actually means in practice — noting that the naval blockade has persisted regardless. Tasnim and its associated commentators have consistently framed the American position as one driven by illusion about its leverage, pointing to Tasnim's trending headlines including "US Government, Media Surrounded by Illusions" and "Iranian President Says Prolonged Conflict Benefits No Side."
For now, the path back to Islamabad runs through one specific demand: the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade. Until Washington moves on that point, Tehran's message, as conveyed through Iran's state-affiliated media, is unambiguous — the Islamic Republic is prepared for negotiations, but it will not negotiate under what it calls coercion.