The White House has confirmed face-to-face negotiations between the US and Iran are currently ongoing in Islamabad.
Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif and chief of army staff Asim Munir are chairing the high-stakes summit between the two delegations, led by US vice-president JD Vance and Iranian officials.
It presents an opportunity to broker a deal to end the war between the US and Israel versus Iran, which destabilised the region since it began on February 28.
A two-week ceasefire was initiated on Tuesday and the Gulf region has experienced a significant drop in hostilities, with no strikes reported on Saturday.
The Islamabad conference marks the highest-level direct engagement between Washington and Tehran in decades.
JD Vance is leading the US delegation, backed by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as senior advisers Dr Andrew Baker and Michael Vance, The Guardian reports.
The White House added that a "full suite of US experts on relevant subject areas are present in Islamabad", while "additional experts are supporting from Washington".
Elsewhere, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported: “Considering the US’s excessive demands, it seems that this is the Iranian team’s last chance to reach a common framework in this round of talks.”
A spokesman from Iran’s joint military command dismissed an earlier claim from the US military that two of its navy destroyers had transited the Strait of Hormuz, adding that "initiative over the passage of any vessel rests with the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran".
The waterway is seen as vital trade route to the global economy, one through which 20 per cent of the world's oil and natural gas trade passes. Already, the strait is said to be a point of contention between the US and Iran in the Islamabad talks.
Israel is not present at the US-Iran talks in Islamabad and its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists Israel remains unswayed in its commitment to keep fighting Iran.
Netanyahu wrote on social media: "Israel under my leadership will continue to fight Iran’s terror regime and its proxies, unlike Erdogan who accommodates them and massacred his own Kurdish citizens."
