Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran's parliament, publicly listed three ceasefire violations on Thursday: Israel's continued strikes on Lebanon, a drone incursion into Iranian airspace, and the US refusal to accept Iran's enrichment rights1. His two preconditions for Saturday's talks beginning are a Lebanon ceasefire and the release of Iran's blocked foreign-exchange assets. This advances the framework rejection he issued two days earlier.
President Masoud Pezeshkian told a cabinet meeting in Tehran this week that continued Israeli strikes on Lebanon would make negotiations "meaningless"2. Netanyahu has signalled readiness to open Lebanon negotiations through the US State Department next week, Al Jazeera reported, but Trump privately asked him to "low-key it" on Lebanon ahead of Islamabad3. The Iranian delegation is therefore publicly staking positions Saturday's talks were supposed to resolve but cannot, because the physical violations Iran is citing continue in real time.
Iran arrived in Islamabad via its Parliament speaker, not its foreign minister alone, because Mojtaba Khamenei needs domestic cover. Ghalibaf's three violations give the new Supreme Leader's inner circle a pre-built justification for walking out at any moment. Pakistan's modest success bar, "keep talks going", now reads as a realistic assessment of what the format can actually produce.
