Pakistan to ‘host war talks’ as Iran says US ground troops would be set on fire

Pakistan has announced it will soon host talks between the US and Iran, although there was no immediate word from the two nations.

It was also unclear in the announcement on Sunday whether the talks would be direct or indirect.

“Pakistan is very happy that both Iran and the US have expressed their confidence in Pakistan to facilitate the talks,” foreign minister Ishaq Dar said in a televised speech after top diplomats from Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia met in Islamabad.

“Pakistan will be honoured to host and facilitate meaningful talks between the two sides in the coming days.”

Mr Dar said the ministers endorsed Pakistan’s peace efforts, and they are expected to meet again on Monday to discuss ending the month-long war.

The foreign ministry did not answer questions about the announcement.

Pakistan has emerged as a mediator, having relatively good ties with both Washington DC and Tehran.

Pakistani officials have said their public effort follows weeks of quiet diplomacy, while providing few details.

Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, dismissed the talks in Pakistan as a cover after some 2,500 US marines trained in amphibious landings arrived in the Middle East.

He said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional partners forever,” according to state media.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military will widen its invasion of Lebanon, expanding the “existing security strip” in that country’s south while targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group.

No details were released.

The war has threatened global supplies of oil, natural gas and fertiliser and disrupted air travel.

Iran’s grip on the strategic Strait of Hormuz has shaken markets and prices, and now the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels’ entry into the war could threaten shipping on another crucial waterway, the Bab el-Mandeb strait to the Red Sea.

“We don’t know at what moment our homes could be targeted,” said Razzak Saghir al-Mousawi, 71, describing relentless airstrikes as Iranians crossing into Iraq urged the US to end the war.

“I am definitely afraid.”

More than 3,000 people have been killed in the war that began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran that triggered Iranian attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf Arab states.

The war continues on the digital front as well.

Pakistan said the foreign ministers met in Islamabad without US or Israeli participation, days after the US offered Iran a 15-point “action list” as a framework for a possible peace deal.

Egypt’s Badr Abdelatty said the meetings are aimed at opening a “direct dialogue” between the US and Iran, which have largely communicated through mediators.

Both this war and last year’s 12-day war began during rounds of indirect talks.

Iranian officials have rejected the US framework and publicly dismissed the idea of negotiating under pressure.

But Press TV, the English-language arm of Iran’s state broadcaster, reported last week that Tehran had drafted its own five-point proposal that reportedly called for a halt to killing Iranian officials, guarantees against future attacks, reparations and Iran’s “exercise of sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz”.

Iran has eased some restrictions on commercial ships in the strait, agreeing late on Saturday to allow 20 more Pakistani-flagged vessels to pass through.

It “sends a clear signal that Iran remains open for business with the world, provided the United States abandons coercion”, said Asif Durrani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Iran.

An adviser to the UAE, Anwar Gargash, called for any settlement to the war to include “clear guarantees” that Iranian attacks on neighbours will not be repeated.

Mr Gargash said Iran’s government has become “the main threat” to Persian Gulf security and called for compensation for attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Iran on Sunday warned of escalation after Israeli airstrikes hit several universities, including ones that Israel claimed were used for nuclear research and development.

Concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme are at the heart of tensions.

The paramilitary Revolutionary Guard warned that Iran would consider Israeli universities and branches of US universities in the region “legitimate targets” unless offered safety assurances for Iranian universities, state media reported.

US colleges have campuses in Qatar and the UAE, including Georgetown, New York and Northwestern universities.

“If the US government wants its universities in the region spared, it should condemn the bombardment” of Iranian universities by midday on Monday, the Guard said in a statement.

The American University of Beirut moved classes online and called it a precautionary measure.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Saturday that dozens of universities and research centres have been hit, among them the Iran University of Science and Technology and Isfahan University of Technology.

Both sides in the war have threatened to attack civilian facilities, which critics have warned could be a war crime.

In Lebanon, officials said more than 1,200 people have been killed.

There were fears of more deaths after Mr Netanyahu, speaking on a visit to northern Israel, said Israel was “determined to fundamentally change the situation in the north”.

He said Hezbollah “still has residual capability to fire rockets at us”.

Iranian authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed in the Islamic Republic, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.

In Iraq, where Iranian-supported militia groups have entered the conflict, 80 members of the security forces have died.

In Gulf states, 20 people have been killed. Four have been killed in the occupied West Bank.