Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan joined his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar in Cairo at a meeting hosted by Egypt’s top diplomat, Badr Abdelatty. The meeting on Sunday came one day after Fidan’s arrival in the Egyptian capital, where he also held talks with Prince Faisal and Abdelatty on a Libya-themed meeting. Sunday’s talks focused on implementation of a deal between the United States and Iran.
Around the same hours, U.S. and Iranian delegations met in Switzerland. The ministers launched a discussion in Cairo over several topics, particularly regional developments and the way forward for implementation of a deal between Iran and the United States.
This is the fourth quadrilateral meeting of the countries. The first meeting was held in Riyadh on March 20 and was followed by another meeting in Islamabad. Fidan hosted the third meeting on April 17, in the southern Turkish city of Antalya. All meetings focused on the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict and ties between the four countries.
During his visit to Cairo, Fidan was also received by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
Türkiye, along with Pakistan, is among the leading countries that mobilized diplomacy to end the conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
Top-level talks began in the Swiss mountain resort of Bürgenstock on Sunday between U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Iranian representatives.
The talks were overshadowed by reports of further clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in Lebanon despite the cease-fire in the conflict.
Iran's Foreign Ministry played down any high expectations from the talks. Speaking to state broadcaster IRIB, ministry spokesperson Ismail Baghai said there were no plans to extend them beyond a single day. Baghai said the talks would start with bilateral meetings between the Iranian representatives and the Pakistani and Qatari delegations, followed by a round with the U.S. delegation in the afternoon.
Working groups at the expert level were also planned, he said. These would deal with the release of blocked Iranian bank accounts and the possible easing of sanctions, he added.
Under the terms of the cease-fire between Washington and Tehran, a final agreement is to be reached within 60 days on Iran's nuclear program.
However, the truce already appears to be vulnerable, with Iran's military announcing on Saturday it was again closing the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping in response to the cease-fire violations in Lebanon.
Trump meanwhile threatened to impose a U.S.-controlled transit fee in the key waterway if a deal is not achieved within the 60-day timeframe.
