[Anchor]
The U.S. and Iran are reportedly weighing their first direct, face-to-face talks as soon as this week.
Pakistan, which has offered to mediate, is emerging as the likely host for those negotiations.
Can the sides find a breakthrough to end the fighting?
Reporter Jang Yoon-hee brings us the report.
[Reporter]
Global attention is focused on whether the U.S. and Iran will sit down at the negotiating table as soon as this week.
If the talks happen, they would be the first official, in-person negotiations since hostilities began.
U.S. outlets say a negotiation team centered on Vice President JD Vance, Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has been assembled.
Officials say Pakistan, which maintains close ties with Iran, has actively mediated and arranged the talks.
Islamabad is being discussed as the likely venue for high-level meetings.
Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief, reportedly called President Trump on the 22nd to help set the diplomatic groundwork.
Foreign media say Iran’s negotiation counterpart could be Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament.
Ghalibaf has run for president three times since 2005 and is widely regarded as ambitious, but it’s unclear whether he would sit at the table as a close aide to the new supreme leader, Muztaba.
Iran’s foreign ministry has acknowledged indirect contact with the U.S., keeping open the prospect of a dramatic agreement to end the war.
President Trump told CNN he had “reached agreement with Iran on 15 issues.”
He did not lay out the items in detail, but they are believed to include relinquishing nuclear weapons and a joint framework for managing the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump also warned that if talks fail he would “keep bombing freely,” signaling he intends to maintain military pressure.
This is Jang Yoon-hee of Yonhap News TV.
[Video editing: Kim Dong-hyun]
[Graphics: Yong Su-ji]
#US #Negotiations #Pakistan #Mediation #Talks
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Jang Yoon-hee (ego@yna.co.kr)
