Senior envoys from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt opened coordinated meetings in Islamabad on Friday in an effort to draw Iran and Israel into structured talks, as the regional war entered its second month with no clear path off the battlefield.

The three-day session at the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, which Pakistani officials described as preparatory rather than a formal negotiation, brought together a Saudi delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed al-Khuraiji and an Egyptian team under Assistant Foreign Minister Hossam Zaki. They were received by Pakistani Foreign Secretary Saira Tarar, who said the goal was to convert weeks of bilateral shuttle diplomacy into a single track with a recognizable framework.

“There has been a great deal of motion and very little movement,” Tarar told reporters in the marble forecourt of the ministry. “Our task this week is to put a usable structure on the table — something the parties can react to without losing face.”

The Islamabad meetings come as casualties continue to mount on both sides. Iranian state media reported Friday morning that overnight Israeli strikes hit two industrial sites near Isfahan and what the report called a “scientific facility” in the eastern province of Yazd. Israel’s military confirmed strikes in central Iran but declined to specify targets. In Tel Aviv, residents took shelter twice overnight as Iranian drones and at least one ballistic missile were intercepted over the central coast, the Israel Defense Forces said.

U.S. Central Command, in a written statement, confirmed that two American sailors were killed Thursday when a Houthi cruise missile struck a logistics vessel transiting the Bab el-Mandeb strait. The deaths brought the total U.S. military fatalities since the war began to roughly 340, according to an unofficial tally maintained by congressional staff and confirmed by two defense officials.

A widening cast of mediators

The Islamabad push reflects a quiet redistribution of diplomatic labor. Qatar, which had taken the lead in early March on prisoner-related back channels, has stepped back at Iranian request after Tehran objected to what it called Doha’s “tilt” during the opening week of strikes. Oman, the traditional intermediary between Washington and Tehran, has continued to host technical contacts but has signaled it does not want to chair a formal process.

That has left Pakistan, with its long-standing security relationship with Riyadh and a working channel to Tehran through shared borders and Shia clerical networks, as an unexpected but logical convener. Saudi Arabia’s involvement, U.S. and European officials said, was negotiated at the level of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is said to view a Saudi-branded peace effort as both a strategic gain and a hedge against the war spilling further into Gulf shipping lanes.

“The Saudis want a seat at the table when the smoke clears, and they want the Iranians to remember who helped end it,” said Layla Hassan, a Beirut-based regional analyst with the Levant Policy Forum. “Cairo’s interest is more defensive — keeping the Red Sea open and keeping a Sunni voice in any post-war architecture.”

A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, said the United States was “encouraged but not invested” in the Islamabad track at this stage. The official said Washington had passed messages through the Saudi delegation but had not endorsed any specific text.

Framework principles taking shape

Diplomats briefed on the discussions said the mediators were circulating a short paper, drafted in Riyadh over the past week, that outlines what they are calling “framework principles” — a set of pre-negotiation commitments intended to ease the parties into formal talks. The principles, according to three officials with knowledge of the document, include a conditional pause on strikes against civilian infrastructure, a verification mechanism for Iranian nuclear sites administered jointly by the International Atomic Energy Agency and a Gulf observer team, and an exchange of detained foreign nationals.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in remarks to Iranian state television on Friday evening, said Tehran was “studying the Pakistani paper with seriousness” but warned that any framework that required Iran to halt support for what he called “resistance forces” in the region would be rejected. He did not mention the nuclear verification clause.

Israel has been more reticent. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Friday only that Israel “remains in close contact with our American allies and continues to act in self-defense.” Israeli officials privately told European counterparts this week that any pause would require an Iranian commitment on missile transfers to Hezbollah, according to two European diplomats.

Pressure from the Gulf and from oil markets

The mediation effort is unfolding against the backdrop of Wednesday’s emergency OPEC+ session in Vienna, where ministers announced a production increase of roughly 1.5 million barrels per day. Brent crude, which had spiked above $125 a barrel in late March, eased to $111 in Friday trading, its lowest level in two weeks.

Gulf officials have made little secret of their concern that an uncapped war could draw in Bahrain, where U.S. Navy facilities have already been targeted, and complicate the Saudi crown prince’s economic agenda. “Every additional week of this carries a cost the region is not eager to keep paying,” said Khalid al-Mutairi, a Kuwait-based energy and security analyst.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, in a statement Friday from New York, urged “all parties to seize the moment that Islamabad represents” and announced that the U.N. envoy for the region, Geir Pedersen, would travel to Pakistan on Sunday to observe the talks.

The mediators are expected to issue a joint communiqué on Monday. Pakistani officials said additional meetings, possibly including a direct technical exchange between Iranian and Saudi nuclear regulators, would be announced if the framework principles gained traction over the weekend.