Abbas Araghchi left Islamabad on Saturday and flew to Russia after briefing Pakistan’s leadership on Tehran’s proposal for a framework to end the war, senior diplomats said.
Araghchi, Iran’s foreign ministry deputy, told Pakistani officials he had put forward Tehran’s position on a settlement and then made a stop in Oman where he met the sultan and his Omani counterpart, according to diplomatic accounts. From Oman he proceeded to Moscow, making Russia the next planned stop in a diplomatic shuttle that has also included Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France.
The urgency and breadth of the contacts underscore a fast-moving effort to revive settlement talks after a flurry of moves this week. The White House had announced on Friday that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would travel to Pakistan on Saturday, only for President Donald Trump to cancel the trip on Saturday with a presidential message that, in his words, "we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!"
On the maritime front, CENTCOM said American forces are continuing to enforce a blockade against Iranian ports and that "American forces have directed 38 ships to turn around or return to port," a development that keeps kinetic pressure on Iran even as diplomats circulate proposals.
The most pointed public comment from the Russian side came from Mikhail Ulyanov, who warned that Washington’s negotiating posture is a central obstacle. "The #US is accustomed to conduct negotiations from the position of strength, threatening to use military force or tighten #sanctions. It is obvious that this scheme doesn’t work with #Iran," Ulyanov wrote, and added that "The best way ahead for the US under the current circumstances is to drop all those elements of its position which look like #blackmailing, #ultimatums and #deadlines."
Diplomats who have been tracking the consultations say the recent sequence of contacts has acted as a catalyst toward what one diplomatic source described as a potential permanent end to hostilities. Officials in Islamabad said the diplomacy appears to be moving toward a framework that could include the Iranians, Americans and Gulf countries — a notable shift from the 2015 process that produced the JCPOA, when several Gulf capitals felt excluded.
Gulf capitals, diplomats said, want to be included in any settlement that emerges because they still remember being left out of the 2015 negotiations that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The Iranians have also engaged directly with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France as part of the outreach, suggesting the talks are being shopped more widely than before.
Pakistanis remained hopeful that there would be a second round of talks following Araghchi’s consultations, but the picture on the ground is uneven. On one hand, envoys and regional capitals are expanding contacts; on the other, U.S. military pressure at sea and the White House’s sudden cancellation of envoys’ travel underscore an American posture that some outside Moscow interpret as resistant to patient negotiation.
That contradiction is now the defining tension. Diplomats on the ground are threading a narrow needle: they must present a credible package that brings Gulf states into a settlement while persuading Washington to ease coercive measures that Russia’s Mikhail Ulyanov says look like "blackmailing, #ultimatums and #deadlines." At the same time, CENTCOM’s enforcement actions — the order affecting 38 ships — make clear the U.S. retains instruments to raise the cost of any rapprochement.
The most consequential fact shaping what comes next is simple: whether Washington will shift from a posture of threats to one willing to negotiate terms acceptable to Iran and its regional neighbors. If the United States does not alter its stance, the diplomatic shuttle — from Islamabad to Oman to Moscow and beyond — risks collapsing into parallel tracks that never converge; if it does, the broadening coalition that Iran and its interlocutors are assembling could produce the framework both Pakistanis and Gulf capitals say they want.
For now, Araghchi is the figure carrying Tehran’s offer into Moscow and other regional capitals. His next moves — and how the United States responds — will decide whether this burst of diplomacy becomes the start of a settlement or another round of missed opportunity.
