An Iranian team led by the veteran politician and military commander Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf are scheduled to negotiate with an American delegation headed by Vice President JD Vance on Saturday in Islamabad, Pakistan, to discuss a possible end to the war.
The stakes are high for both sides. The war is deeply unpopular in the United States and President Trump is looking for an exit ramp. Iran has been pummeled with airstrikes, leaving its infrastructure severely destroyed and its economy in ruins.
“We have good will, but we do not have trust,” Mr. Ghalibaf, who is the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, said upon arriving in Islamabad on Friday evening. He pointed out that two earlier rounds of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, in June and February, ended with military strikes instead of a deal.
Iran appears to be taking the talks on Saturday seriously. The delegation of at least 70 people includes experienced diplomats and negotiators, experts in finance and sanctions, military officials and legal advisers, according to Iranian media and a list of the delegation seen by The New York Times.
Notable officials in the Iranian camp include Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi; Ali Bagheri Kani, a member of Iran’s National Security Council; Admiral Ali Akbar Ahmadian, a former chief of staff for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and secretary of the National Security Council; Gen. Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam, a retired military commander who is now the head of Iran’s National Defense University; and Abdolnasser Hemati, governor of the Central Bank of Iran.
Three senior Iranian officials familiar with the talks said Iran’s team had full authority to make decisions in Pakistan and was not required to consult with Tehran given the critical nature of the negotiations. The officials, who asked not to be named because they were discussing sensitive issues, said the new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had given Mr. Ghalibaf, who is a close friend and ally, the power to make a deal or walk away.
Iran’s vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, said in a social media post on Friday that Mr. Ghalibaf was now “representing the nation and the nezam,” using the Persian word for the Islamic Republic’s entire system, which includes not only the elected government but also the supreme leader. “I wish him success,” Mr. Aref said.
“What we can read from Iran’s delegation is that they have not come to stonewall,” said Vali Nasr, a professor of Middle Eastern studies and an Iran expert at Johns Hopkins University. “They have come with full authority and seriousness to reach a deal with the United States.”
Mr. Nasr, who also served in the State Department as a special U.S. representative to Afghanistan during the Obama administration, said that typically such a large delegation of experts would only be deployed if negotiations were in the final stages of a deal, not for an initial testing of the waters.
If Mr. Ghalibaf and Mr. Vance meet in person on Saturday it will represent a major turn in relations between the United States and Iran and the highest-level meeting of officials since diplomatic relations ruptured in 1979. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, will accompany Mr. Vance and both have negotiated with the Iranians before.
Mr. Nasr said that Tehran and Washington might have advanced in talks further than publicly known during back-channel messaging mediated by Pakistan over the past week. Washington sent Tehran a 15-point peace plan and Iran replied with its own 10-point counter plan, which Mr. Trump said would be the framework for talks when he announced the cease-fire on Tuesday.
Among the issues on the table are ending the war, opening the Strait of Hormuz to ships and Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s interests include securing comprehensive sanctions relief, the release of frozen funds and compensation for damage during the war.
Iran has said that any peace deal, temporary or permanent, must also include its closest regional ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. This has been an especially fraught point of contention since massive Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon killed more than 300 people on Wednesday.
Iranian officials, true to form, traveled with symbolism. They arrived wearing head-to-toe black suits and shirts, a sign of mourning. On their plane, according to photographs and videos on Iranian state media, photos and backpacks filled empty seats to represent the nearly 170 children killed in an elementary school when an American tomahawk missile struck it.
Iranian state media said the delegation would meet with Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, at noon on Saturday ahead of meeting with the Americans.
Omid Memarian, a senior fellow and Iran expert at Dawn Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on American foreign policy, said the large delegation was meant to signal that Iran’s top leaders were backing it.
“The most important message Iran is sending with the composition of its delegation,” he said, “is that there is internal consensus for negotiations and a deal at the highest levels of the regime.”
Shirin Hakim contributed reporting.
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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