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The delegations from both sides are expected to meet in Islamabad on 10 April (US Time), which will be Saturday, 11 April, following a ceasefire arrangement shaped by Tehran’s reported conditions.
FILE - Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaks during a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)(AP)Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, will head the Iranian negotiating team for talks with US Vice President JD Vance in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday, 10 April, news agency Reuters said, citing ISNA news agency.
Another Reuters report, citing Tasnim News Agency, however, said that Iran has not yet decided who will head to Islamabad
Earlier, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it has accepted a two-week ceasefire in the war announced by US President Donald Trump earlier on Wednesday morning. The statement said it would begin negotiations with the United States in Islamabad on Friday.
President Trump announced that he had agreed to suspend military actions against Iran for 15 days, citing progress in negotiations and diplomatic interventions by Pakistan.
“Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran… I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The delegations from both sides are expected to meet in Islamabad on 10 April (US Time), which will be Saturday, 11 April, following a ceasefire arrangement shaped by Tehran’s reported conditions.
The upcoming talks are seen as the first direct contact between the two sides after weeks of heightened tensions, with the discussions expected to focus on the framework of a possible long-term settlement.
Who is Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf?
Born in 1961, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf grew up in a grocer's family near Mashhad in Iran’s northeast. Like many young men of his generation, he joined the paramilitary Guard during the country’s 1980s war with Iraq, quickly rising through the ranks. He served as the head of the Guard’s construction arm, Khatam al-Anbia, for several years, leading efforts to rebuild.
Iranian state-owned Press TV reported in 2024 that Qalibaf, as a teenager, founded the Islamic Students’ Association with his classmates, which eventually became a national organisation.
Trained as a pilot, he then served as the head of the Guard’s air force. In 1999, he cosigned a letter to reformist President Mohammad Khatami amid student protests in Tehran over the government’s closure of a reformist newspaper and a subsequent security force crackdown.
The letter warned Khatami that the Guard would take action unilaterally unless he agreed to put down the demonstrations.
Qalibaf then became the head of Iran’s police, modernising the force and implementing the country’s 110 emergency phone number.
Graft charges
Qalibaf faced corruption allegations, as Tehran’s mayor from 2005 to 2017. He was accused of donating around $3.5 million to a foundation run by his wife. His critics would claim Qalibaf was like Reza Pahlavi, a hard-charging soldier who became shah in 1925 and rapidly pushed to Westernise Persia and rename it Iran before handing power to his son Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, according a profile by news agency AP.
6 Weeks of the Iran War
It's been six weeks since the West Asia war began with joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran. Tensions escalated following the killing of 86-year-old Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the military strikes on 28 February.
In retaliation, Iran targeted Israeli and US assets across several Gulf countries, causing further disruptions to the waterway and impacting international energy markets as well as global economic stability, disrupting trade routes through the Strait of Hormuz.
The fighting has left thousands dead, most of them in Iran and Lebanon, and brought vessel traffic through Hormuz — through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas exports normally flow — to a near standstill.
(With Reuters inputs)
About the Author
Gulam Jeelani
Gulam Jeelani is Political Desk Editor at LiveMint with over 16 years of experience covering national and international politics. Based in New Delhi, Jeelani delivers impactful political narratives through breaking stories, in-depth interviews, and analytical pieces at LiveMint since February 2024. The expertise in video production fuels his current responsibilities, which include curating content and conducting video interviews for an expanding digital audience.<br><br> Jeelani also travels during elections and key political events and has covered assembly elections in key states apart from national elections. He has previously worked with The Pioneer, Network18, India Today, News9Plus and Hindustan Times.<br><br> Jeelani’s tenure at LiveMint and previous experience at print and digital newsrooms have honed his skills in creating compelling text and video stories, explainers, and analysis that resonate with a diverse viewership.<br><br> Before moving to New Delhi in 2015, Jeelani was based in Uttar Pradesh, where he worked for five years as a reporter. In 2018, Jeelani was one of the two Indian journalists selected for the Alfred Friendly Fellowship in the US. There, he attended training workshops on reporting and data journalism, and he was attached to the Minneapolis Star Tribune in Minnesota, where he worked as a reporter.<br><br> Jeelani is a Bachelor's in Chemistry and holds a Masters Degree in journalism and mass communication from Aligarh Muslim University. Outside work, he enjoys poetry, cricket and movies.
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