Iran eyes two-stage negotiation track with US
Negotiations between Tehran and Washington are ongoing through an exchange of proposals, with Iran recently submitting its latest package to Pakistani mediators. This comes as disagreements over key issues—including enriched uranium, the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, and Iran’s frozen assets—remain unresolved. US officials keep threatening to resume military operations if no agreement is reached, while Iran has been rolling out new deterrent levers. At the same time, the extension of Pakistan’s interior minister’s visit to Tehran is seen as a sign of intensified efforts to move the talks forward. In this context, Iran Daily has conducted an interview with Reza Ghobeishavi, an international affairs expert. He argues that Iran is pursuing a two-stage negotiation process with the United States, whereby general principles would be agreed upon in the first phase, with details to be negotiated at a later stage.
IRAN DAILY: With Pakistan’s interior minister extending his visit to Tehran as Iran and the United States continue exchanging proposals, is Islamabad now playing the role of an active mediator, or mainly serving as a conduit for US messages and pressure?
GHOBEISHAVI: The visit of Pakistan’s interior minister to Tehran under current circumstances should not be seen as a routine bilateral trip, but rather as part of Pakistan’s mediation efforts between Iran and the United States. It should be recalled that Mohsin Naqvi, alongside the Pakistani foreign minister and army chief, is part of the country’s mediation team led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Based on the extended stay of Pakistan’s interior minister in Tehran and his meetings with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of Iran’s negotiating team with the United States, and President Masoud Pezeshkian, the visit can be interpreted as both mediation and the transmission of US messages to Tehran. With [US President] Donald Trump escalating threats of possible military action against Iran, alongside unofficial reports in Western media, Pakistan has stepped up its mediation efforts in an attempt to bring Tehran and Washington to an agreement by any means possible. This aligns both with the interests of regional countries—whose concerns Pakistan is effectively speaking for—and with broader global interests. Failure to reach an agreement would once again place regional and global interests under serious threat, potentially pushing the region into a trajectory of tension and crisis beyond any country’s capacity to control. Moreover, in the event of a renewed US attack on Iran, all of Pakistan’s achievements through mediation and ceasefire efforts would be effectively wiped out.
Iran has once again transmitted a 14-point proposal to the United States via Pakistan, and it is said that the new text focuses on “ending the war” and “confidence-building measures by the United States.” At the same time, some reports indicate that the proposal makes no reference to Hormuz or enriched uranium and only includes a vaguely defined commitment not to produce nuclear weapons. Can this prioritization be seen as a shift in Tehran’s negotiating strategy, or merely as managing a stalemate within a repetitive framework?
Page 2