Iran's Araghchi tours three capitals with 450kg of leverage; is Trump boxed in?

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi landed in Islamabad on Friday evening to open the long-delayed second round of talks with the US, and special envoy Steve Witkoff and senior adviser Jared Kushner are due in on Saturday morning. The optics point to a breakthrough, but the substance is thinner than the headline suggests.

Both sides have left their lead negotiators at home, Tehran is routing its peace terms through Pakistani mediators rather than handing them over directly, and Araghchi's onward stops in Muscat and Moscow are reviving a standing Russian offer to take custody of Iran's 450-kilogram enriched Uranium stockpile, an offer President Donald Trump has already rejected once. The question heading into the weekend is not what these talks will produce, but whether they are really talks at all.

The choreography without the counterparts

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the US trip on Fox News, framing it as direct talks mediated by Pakistan. What she did not flag is that Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation in the April 11 to 12 round, is staying home. Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, viewed by the White House as Vance's counterpart, is also absent. Both sides have stripped the meeting of its lead negotiators, which is not how governments behave when a deal is close.

Tehran's carefully deniable pitch

Iran's state news agency IRNA described the visit as strictly bilateral. Araghchi echoed the framing on X with the line "our neighbors are our priority." Reuters reports that Tehran will hand its peace terms to Pakistani mediators for onward relay to the US, preserving the fiction that no direct session is taking place. That is useful cover at home, where any public concession to Washington is political poison, particularly for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) faction that backed Ghalibaf in April.

The Moscow card

The part of the tour that should concentrate minds in Washington is the Russia leg. Iran is holding roughly 450 kilograms of 60%-enriched Uranium, convertible to weapons grade within weeks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly confirmed that Russia's offer to take custody, first floated by President Vladimir Putin in March and rejected by President Donald Trump, remains open. Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev said this month that Moscow is ready to assist. A Russian transfer removes the casus belli without a US-branded surrender.

Why Trump said no, and why the problem hasn't gone away

Trump turned down the March offer on leverage grounds. Handing Moscow custody of weapons-usable Uranium while Washington is contesting Ukraine would be a strategic gift, and Trump has acknowledged Russia is aiding Iran in the war. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said this week that Washington has a range of options, including voluntary Iranian surrender, but Tehran's foreign ministry has already described its Uranium as sacred. Washington wants the stockpile secured, just not in Russia.

What to watch this weekend

Saturday's session is unlikely to produce a public breakthrough. Pakistani mediators will try to bridge the Strait of Hormuz blockade and sanctions relief, with Araghchi's proposal as the starting point. If he flies to Moscow on Monday with an empty briefcase, the Russian path sharpens and Oil risk premia stay elevated. If he leaves Islamabad with a framework, the ceasefire holds. What looks like a resumption of talks is, for now, a staged exchange without lead negotiators, and Iran's fallback option is sitting on a tarmac in Moscow.