On April 8, shortly after the United States and Iran accepted a Pakistani proposal to abide by a two-week ceasefire in the war in Iran, Israel carried out a massive wave of air strikes aimed at Hezbollah sites in Lebanon.

These attacks, the deadliest in decades, complicated the peace talks between the United States and Iran in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

Iran, claiming that the Israeli assault violated the ceasefire, threatened to call off negotiations altogether unless Israel stopped its military offensive. Pakistan, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel, supported Iran’s contention that the truce applied equally to Lebanon.

Despite Iran’s threat, talks got underway on April 11. Mediated by Pakistan, they were the highest-level meeting between U.S. and Iranian representatives since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. But after 21 hours of negotiations in an atmosphere laden with suspicion and mistrust, Vice President JD Vance, the lead U.S. negotiator, acknowledged that they had failed.

Iran rejected “our final and best offer,” Vance said, paving the way for his prompt departure from Pakistan.

The current war in Lebanon figured prominently in the negotiations.

European leaders argued that Israeli strikes in Lebanon were undermining the tenuous two-week truce in Iran. “The severity with which Israel is waging war (in Lebanon) could cause the peace process as a whole to fail,” said Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, one of Israel’s closest allies. Kaja Kallas, the top European Union diplomat, said that Israel was placing the ceasefire “under severe strain.” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Israel’s attacks “should stop.”

Pushing back, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that there was no connection between the talks in Pakistan and the fighting in Lebanon, and that Israel would press on with its campaign to degrade Hezbollah.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Vance initially backed Israel. Subsequently, in three telephone conversations described as “tense” by the media, Trump asked Netanyahu to scale down the severity of Israel’s attacks.

Acceding to Trump’s request or demand, Israel cancelled further air strikes in Beirut, but continued its offensive in the rest of Lebanon as Israeli forces and Hezbollah exchanged blows.

However, Israel belatedly accepted Lebanon’s offer of direct talks. Lebanon, which has been in a technical state of war with Israel since its creation in 1948, offered Netanyahu this option last month after the Israeli army invaded Lebanon for the second time in two years.

Israel launched its latest invasion after Hezbollah, Iran’s primary proxy in the Middle East, fired rockets into the Galilee on March 2, a few days after the United States and Israel........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)