Iran says exchanges with US via Pakistan continue after failed talks

Iran said Wednesday that exchanges with the United States via Pakistan had continued following failed negotiations over the weekend.

“Since Sunday, when the Iranian delegation returned to Tehran, several messages have been exchanged through Pakistan,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei in a weekly press briefing.

“Today, we are very likely to receive a Pakistani delegation as a continuation of the discussions in Islamabad,” he added.

Baqaei said the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy could not be “taken away under pressure or through war”.

“Regarding the level and type of enrichment, we have always stated that this issue is negotiable. We have emphasised that Iran should be able to continue enrichment in accordance with its needs,” he added.

Negotiating teams from the US and Iran could return to Islamabad later this week, five sources told Reuters earlier on Tuesday, days after the highest-level talks between the two countries in decades ended without a breakthrough.

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A source involved in the talks said a date was not yet decided, but both countries could return as early as the end of this week.

The weekend meeting in Pakistan’s capital to resolve the conflict between the US and Iran, held four days after last Tuesday’s ceasefire announcement, was the first direct encounter between US and Iranian officials in more than a decade, and the most senior engagement since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A proposal has been shared with both the US and Iran to resend their delegates to resume the talks, the first source told Reuters.