Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's party suspended street protests on Wednesday after a sweeping midnight raid by security forces in the capital Islamabad in which hundreds of people were arrested, local media reported.

According to a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) statement, a "temporary suspension" of the protest has been agreed to. 

The protest has left at least six people dead, including four paramilitary soldiers and two protesters.

Thousands of protesters had gathered in the centre of Islamabad on Tuesday after a convoy, led by Khan's wife Bushra Bibi, broke through several lines of security all the way to the edge of the city's highly fortified red zone.

Geo News reported that a massive raid was launched by security forces in a pitch-dark central Islamabad, where lights had been turned off and a barrage of teargas was fired. 

The protest gathering was almost completely dispersed, they reported.

On Wednesday morning, city workers were cleaning up debris and clearing some of the shipping containers that had blocked roads around the capital. 

The heavily fortified red zone was empty of protesters but several of their vehicles were left behind, including the remains of a truck from which Bushra Bibi had been leading the protests that appeared charred by flames, according to Reuters witnesses.

PTI had planned on staging a sit-in in the red zone until the release of Khan, who has been in jail since August last year.

PTI's president for the city of Peshawar in the party's northern stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the party had called off the protest.

"We will chalk out the new strategy later after proper consultation,” Mohammad Asim told Reuters.

He said that Bushra Bibi as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, a key Khan ally, had returned "safely" to the province from the capital.

At least five security personnel have been killed and dozens were reported injured after Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan's supporters entered Islamabad on Monday night.

Pakistan's government has vowed to take every action needed to bring the situation under control. The army was also given “shoot-at-sight” orders.

The clashes erupted after Imran Khan's supporters gathered for a protest demanding his release from prison.

Supporters broke through barricades of shipping containers designed to lock down the city. However, the unrest escalated as police used tear gas to disperse crowds.

Pakistani media claims that among those injured and journalists.

Meanwhile, Associated Press (AP) reported that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued a stern warning to demonstrators, threatening to respond with live ammunition if protesters fired at law enforcement.

“If they again fire bullets, the bullet will be responded with the bullet,” he said shortly after midnight.

AP also reported that one of its journalists sustained head injuries in the clashes and that his camera was destroyed.
The PTI rally, despite a court ban on protests in the capital, saw thousands of supporters converge approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from Islamabad’s Red Zone, which houses key government buildings.

Authorities had proposed alternative rally locations outside the city, but the offer was rejected by PTI.

The violence coincides with an official visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, adding to the tension. Naqvi reiterated the government’s stance, stating that only the courts have the authority to release Khan.

Iran will hold talks about its disputed nuclear programme with three European powers on Nov. 29 , the Iranian foreign ministry said on Sunday, days after the U.N. atomic watchdog passed a resolution against Tehran.

Iran reacted to the resolution - proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States - with what government officials called various measures such as activating numerous new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.

Japan's Kyodo news agency, which first reported that the meeting would take place on Friday in Geneva, said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's government was seeking a solution to the nuclear impasse ahead of the inauguration in January of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday, adding: "Tehran has always believed that the nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomacy. Iran has never left the talks."

Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei later said the deputy foreign ministers of Iran, France, Germany and Britain would take part in the talks, which he said would cover regional issues as well as the nuclear dossier.a

Baghaei did not say where the talks would take place. A spokesperson for the Swiss foreign ministry directed questions to the countries named in the Kyodo report.

"Views will be exchanged ... on a range of regional discussions and subjects including the issues of Palestine, Lebanon and also the nuclear subject", Baghaei said.

In 2018, the then-Trump administration exited Iran's 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact's nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.

Indirect talks between President Joe Biden's administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said during his election campaign in September: "We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal".