Live updates: Follow the latest news on Iran war
The last motorcade left the Islamabad Serena Hotel just after dawn on Sunday, marking the end of a marathon of talks between the US and Iran that failed to deliver an immediate peace deal.
The building's white facade and wooden accents, its design a homage to Islamic civilisation, had been the centre of global diplomacy at the weekend, but is now returning to being a five-star hotel on a quiet road between Margalla Hills and Rawal Lake.
After Pakistan’s security services swept the building and as staff continued to dismantle the peace talks set-up, The National was allowed into the hotel before it was opened to the general public.
For 21 hours, from Saturday into Sunday morning, US Vice President JD Vance and Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf sat in the Serena’s conference rooms and tried to end a war. They and their colleagues negotiated through the night on the issues that have convulsed the Middle East for six weeks: the Strait of Hormuz, war reparations, sanctions and – above all – Iran’s nuclear programme.
It was the highest-level encounter between the two governments since Iran’s 1979 revolution - but with no immediate success, just hopes for more rounds of talks and for a fragile ceasefire to keep the line holding.
The Serena, opened in 2002 by President Pervez Musharraf and the late Aga Khan, whose economic development fund remains the hotel’s largest shareholder, sits on 5.5 hectares of landscaped gardens. It is, perhaps as the name suggests, designed to lend a sense of serenity, with open-air terraces, pavilions, interiors lined with hand-hewn marble and thousands of square feet of individually painted wooden ceiling panels.
There are more than 400 rooms, a grand ballroom and conference halls, making it an ideal venue for the talks held at the weekend.
In the lead-up to the negotiations, the Pakistani government took over the property. Guests were asked to leave. Roads around the hotel were sealed. Nearly all the staff were restricted to certain floors or kept off the property for the entire period. By the time the American and Iranian delegations arrived, the Serena had become, in the words of one Pakistani security official, a “diplomatic fortress”.
The National’s reporter saw inside the various rooms where the US-Iran summit was to be held. The crescendo of the event, the direct talks between Mr Vance and Mr Ghalibaf, took place in a small conference room at one end of the lobby. The regular furniture was removed and replaced with lounge seating. The set-up for the direct talks, The National understands, was more intimate than a conference table would have allowed.
Immediately opposite the corridor was another room converted into an office for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry and a few steps away was another used by Pakistan’s Army Chief of Staff, Asim Munir. Down a set of nearby stairs was an area closed to everyone except senior US officials and the American Secret Service. A large room at the foot of the stairs was given to Mr Vance as a private office.
The Iranian delegation, which was accommodated at the nearby Marriott, worked from a different area of the hotel. The National visited the office shared by Mr Ghalibaf and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Down a long passageway in a banquet hall, Pakistani officials had set up a large, triangular table flanked by Iranian, US and Pakistani flags that was meant to be the centrepiece of the summit, where a successful deal would be announced. The room, a source told The National, was carefully inspected several times over three days by Pakistan’s leadership. In the end, it was never used.
Nearly all signs of the milestone diplomatic event that had taken place here had been cleared by 11pm, with a few exceptions. On top of a side table were discarded US and Iranian placards, and a few people who appeared to be US soldiers staying in the hotel milled about the lobby, preparing to check out. Three Iranian flags were left in the corner of a spare room beside disused furniture. The US State Department, a source told The National, supplied flags for all three countries participating in the talks.
The National spoke to individuals who were present at the hotel during the summit. They described the atmosphere as calm but tense. There were moments of acute anticipation, when Gen Munir, whom many have described as the chief mediator, could be seen walking briskly through the halls delivering messages between the American and Iranian sides.
Although the summit was over, on Sunday night, the Serena appeared to be full of US and Pakistani security personnel. One source told The National that some lower-ranking members of the US team remained in the building.
At the hotel’s breakfast buffet on Monday morning, The National’s reporter encountered an American man wearing combat boots and what appeared to be army fatigues underneath a jumper. When asked whether he was a US soldier here to provide security for the talks, the man replied curtly that he was a tourist in Islamabad on holiday.
Another person in the hotel who approached The National’s reporter identified himself as a member of the media. When asked why he was carrying a walkie-talkie radio, he laughed and ignored the question.
Mid-morning on Monday in the Faisalabad Room, the conference table has been put back in place, blank notepads and pens laid neatly in front of all the chairs, ready for the next meeting – one that may be less exciting than what has already taken place.
The first tourists and business travellers began trickling into the hotel and by noon, the venue had gradually returned to its natural state. Two musicians took their seats on a low stage in the lobby, playing traditional tunes, and the staff zipped around with trays of iced water.
One staff member The National spoke to said it was a great honour to have the whole world watching Serena at the weekend but getting back to normal was a “relief”. What remains is the weight of what almost happened, and the question of whether the US and Iran will ever sit down in this building, or any other, again.
