- US Vice President Vance tells Iran he is not 'playing games' with US in talks with Pakistan.
- Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon continue on Friday.
- Talks will not begin until the United States meets the above demands: Iran.
Iran said Friday that blocked Iranian assets must be released and a ceasefire established in Lebanon before peace talks can continue, raising last-minute doubts about talks scheduled for Saturday in Pakistan.
The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said in X that the two measures had been previously agreed with the United States and warned that negotiations would not begin until they were fulfilled.
There was no immediate comment from the White House.
Earlier, Vice President JD Vance, who will lead the US delegation, left for the talks in Pakistan saying he hoped for a positive outcome. But “if they're going to try to play us, then they're going to find that the negotiating team is not as receptive,” Vance added.
Iran has been unable to raise tens of billions of dollars of its assets in foreign banks, mainly from oil and gas exports, due to US sanctions on its banking and energy sectors.
Tenuous truce
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a two-week ceasefire in a six-week war, just hours before a deadline after which he had threatened to destroy Iran's civilization.
However, the truce is fragile, with continued Israeli bombing of Lebanon and the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz being key points of conflict for both sides.
The ceasefire has halted the US and Israeli airstrike campaign against Iran. But it has so far done nothing to end the blockade of the strait, which has caused the biggest ever disruption to global energy supplies, or to calm a parallel war waged by Israel against Iran's allies, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
Iran was doing a “very bad job” of letting oil pass through the strait, US President Donald Trump said in a social media post. He also warned Tehran not to try to charge fees on ships passing through it. “That's not the agreement we have!”
Israel has also said that its parallel campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon was not part of the agreed ceasefire.
Israeli attacks continued across southern Lebanon on Friday, with more than a dozen people reported killed in several cities. An attack killed eight members of Lebanese state security forces, the country's state media said.
