Iran-US talks in Islamabad held via indirect, direct channels: sources
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Islamabad (PTI): The Iran-US peace talks were conducted first indirectly through Pakistan and later through direct negotiations between the two sides, official sources said on Sunday.
Pakistan remained involved at every stage of the process, with the talks beginning with separate meetings of the US and Iranian delegations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday.
This was followed by an exchange of messages between the two sides through Pakistani interlocutors, the sources said.
The Iranian delegation was led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqir Galibaf, while the US team was headed by Vice President JD Vance.
According to sources, the negotiations then moved to direct talks between the visiting delegations, which continued for about two-and-a-half hours in the presence of Pakistani officials.
In the next phase, a one-hour break was taken and technical aspects of the demands presented by the two sides were discussed at the expert level. The exchange of messages on technical aspects continued until late at night.
However, by Sunday morning, it became clear that the differences could not be bridged, leading US Vice President JD Vance to announce at a brief press conference that the talks ended without a deal.
The sources said Pakistan remains hopeful of further rounds of talks, though no date or venue has been finalised so far.
The Pakistani government had earlier said it would continue to play its role as a mediator and expressed hope that the talks would prove to be a step towards resolving the dispute.
The Iranian delegation had arrived in Islamabad on Friday night, while the US team arrived on Saturday morning.
The US side also included President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, while Iran was also represented by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other senior leaders.
The two sides travelled to Islamabad, days after Iran and the US announced a two-week ceasefire on April 8. It was the first direct, high-level engagement between Iran and the US since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The failure to arrive at an agreement following the face-to-face negotiations between the two sides raised doubts over the effectiveness of their fragile two-week ceasefire as well as the prospect of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to stabilise the global energy market.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
