When direct talks between top-level US and Iranian delegations in Islamabad broke up a week ago, the worst seemed inevitable. But the worst – the resumption of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran and retaliatory strikes by Iran on facilities in the Gulf states – did not, in fact, ensue. Nor, it transpires, did the end of those talks terminate definitively what had been a hasty and ill-prepared diplomatic dialogue of the sort so typical of this US president’s international dealings.
Channels have remained open, communications at some level have been maintained, and Donald Trump now insists – despite Iran apparently having rejected the idea – that those top-level US-Iran talks will resume in Islamabad this week. If indeed they do, that offers a faint ray of hope that the current ceasefire could be prolonged, with the even fainter prospect that the conflict could end.
