Iran has played down expectations of direct talks with the United States over ending the war as U.S. envoys are expected to travel to Islamabad, Pakistan — but this time without Vice President JD Vance, the lead negotiator.
After Vance led a delegation there earlier this month that took part in more than 20 hours of negotiations on the ground, the White House said talks this time will be led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law who has taken part in past negotiations.
On Saturday, Iran’s Embassy in Pakistan said in a post on X that Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Pakistan’s Defense Force Chief Gen. Asim Munir in Islamabad.
In a separate post ahead of the meeting, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Araghchi would meet with Pakistani officials “in concert with” their mediation efforts to end the war. “No meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the U.S.,” he said, adding that “Iran’s observations would be conveyed to Pakistan.”
Araghchi said Friday his visit to Islamabad is part of a tour that includes Muscat, Oman, and Moscow to engage on “bilateral matters and consult on regional developments.” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said he was pleased to welcome the Iranian delegation and looked “forward to our meaningful engagements aimed at promoting regional peace and stability.”
The decision not to send Vance, U.S. officials say, reflects the lower level of these talks after the last trip failed to result in a deal. The Iranians, likewise, will not be sending their top negotiator, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Witkoff and Kushner are set to depart for Islamabad on Saturday.
Vance, however, will remain on standby prepared to travel to Pakistan if White House officials “feel it’s a necessary use of his time,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday. Some of the vice president’s staff will be in attendance in Islamabad for the talks.
Two U.S. officials described the decision not to send Vance as being in line with diplomatic protocol under which the vice president would make the lengthy trek to Pakistan, where government officials are serving as mediators, only if Vance were to negotiate with a peer.
While a parliament speaker wouldn’t typically be the vice president’s analogue, Ghalibaf is the highest-level Iranian official who has been involved in talks to end the war, and the White House has regarded him as Vance’s peer in negotiations.
“The Iranians want to talk. They want to talk in person,” Leavitt said. “And so the president is … always willing to give diplomacy a chance.”
The absence of Vance in Islamabad could make it easier for the administration to manage the public relations fallout if Iran withdraws from the talks or puts forward demands the White House feels it can’t accept, said two U.S. officials.
The presence of Air Force Two, with its security requirements and necessary resources, raises expectations for negotiations, the officials said, and makes it more difficult to explain away an embarrassing snub from the Iranians.
But officials who are hoping for a quick end to the war say Vance is a key asset to the delegation, and his presence may be missed.
The vice president, who made his deep concerns about the war known to Trump before the decision to attack, has also been keen to limit the scope of the conflict and not let it drag on, officials said.
Kushner and Witkoff have been more inclined to add Israel’s objectives to the U.S. negotiating position, for example, forcing Iran to agree to ending support for allies in the region, such as Hezbollah, Hamas or the Houthi militants in Yemen, a U.S. official said. That demand, which Iran calls a nonstarter, could drag out the talks, which would add to the economic pain the world will suffer as the corridor for 20 percent of the globe’s oil and gas supply remains closed.
Leavitt said the administration hopes that “progress will be made” and that “positive developments will come from this meeting.”
Asked whether the U.S. has received a unified proposal from Iran — after Trump and other U.S. officials this week indicated they were concerned that Iran’s current government leadership and military were not on the same page — Leavitt said the Trump administration had “certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last couple of days.” She did not elaborate.
While Iran made no formal announcement that it would show up for the talks, a U.S. official said that Witkoff and Kushner had received confirmation from Tehran. “They wouldn’t go otherwise,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.
The previous round of talks was delayed, as Witkoff and Kushner sat on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews awaiting Vance’s arrival before the trip was eventually called off.
After traveling 18 hours and engaging in another 20 hours of negotiations in Islamabad earlier this month, Vance emerged from the face-to-face talks to announce that no deal had been struck to end the war. But Trump, Vance and other U.S. officials said that progress was still made during the talks to establish goodwill with officials of a country with which the U.S. has had difficulty achieving mutual understanding.
Trump said afterward that while his delegation took part in a “very intensive negotiation … toward the end, it got very friendly.”
The president, however, has continued to threaten to strike civilian infrastructure if Iran does not agree to U.S. terms about its nuclear program.
Vance, whom Trump tapped to lead the negotiations, has remained involved in the effort. The White House has said Vance — and even Trump — could be dispatched to Pakistan if further progress is made toward reaching a deal, although Trump would probably go only for a signing ceremony after a deal has been reached. Vance is scheduled to travel to Iowa next week.
Trump on Thursday posted to Truth Social that he is not in a hurry to end the war, describing himself as “possibly the least pressured person ever to be in this position.”
“I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t — The clock is ticking!” Trump wrote. He added that a “deal will only be made when it’s appropriate and good for the United States of America, our Allies and, in fact, the rest of the World.”
Late last week, Trump declared — and Iran sharply denied — that Tehran had agreed to virtually all U.S. demands, including an end to all uranium enrichment and turning over all of its existing highly enriched material to the United States. Trump also said Iran, with U.S. assistance, was removing all of the mines it had placed in the Strait of Hormuz and promised “never to close the waterway again.”
In response, Ghalibaf, the chief Iranian negotiator, said the U.S. “did not win the war with these lies, and they will certainly not get anywhere in negotiations either.”
While one of Iran’s demands for ending the war is the unfreezing of billions of its funds in overseas bank accounts, Trump has insisted that no money will change hands as part of a negotiated settlement. On Friday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced an additional freeze on $344 million in “multiple” cryptocurrency wallets tied to Iran. It also imposed new sanctions on a Chinese refinery it said was “one of Iran’s largest customers, having purchased billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum.”
After Trump said he would extend the current tenuous ceasefire because it was hard for an Iranian government fractured between radicals and moderates to have a unified negotiating position, Tehran fired back Friday with identical posts from senior officials on X.
“In Iran,” it said, “there are no radicals or moderates; we are all ‘Iranian’ and ‘revolutionary,’ and with the iron unity of the nation and government, with complete obedience to the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, we will make the aggressor criminal regret his actions.”
Victoria Craw in London contributed to this report.
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