Kushner, Witkoff to Pakistan for Iran talks without Vance: White House
US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Pakistan on Saturday morning to participate in “direct talks” with their Iranian counterparts, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Friday.
“The Iranians reached out” and asked for a face-to-face meeting, as President Donald Trump has asked them to do, Leavitt told Fox News.
“The President is sending Steve and Jared to hear what they have to say, and we hope that this will be a productive conversation and that will lead to progress toward an agreement,” he said.
The announcement signals a potential diplomatic breakthrough after peace talks between the warring powers stalled earlier this week.
Leavitt said Vice President JD Vance, who led the previous US delegation to Islamabad for the first round of talks with Iran, will not participate in the talks this weekend.
“The vice president remains deeply involved in this entire process, and he, along with the president and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the entire national security team, will be here in the United States for updates,” he said.
“And of course, everyone will be ready to fly to Pakistan if necessary. But first, Steve and Jared will go there to report to the president, vice president and the rest of the team.”
Trump told Reuters in a phone call later Friday that Iran “will make an offer,” adding that he didn’t know yet what it would be and “we’ll have to see.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said early Friday that he would “take a timely trip” to Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow to “closely coordinate with our partners on bilateral issues and consult on regional developments.”
In the Fox interview, Leavitt said “Pakistanis will mediate” the Islamabad talks.
The first round of peace talks, held in Islamabad about two weeks ago and led by Vance on the US side, ended without an agreement.
A US delegation, including Vance, was expected to return to Pakistan at the beginning of this week to continue the negotiations, but the trip was postponed after Iranian officials said that this delegation would not come.
Much of the bilateral tensions have centered on the Strait of Hormuz, the main oil shipping route, where traffic has slowly diminished due to threats from Iran and a retaliatory naval blockade by the United States since last week.
Trump said in a Reuters interview that the United States will not lift the blockade of Iranian ports until an agreement is reached.
The tensions have further strained the already fragile ceasefire, which was declared on April 7 after Trump threatened that Iran’s “entire civilization would die” if a deal was not reached.
Despite ongoing stress in the Strait, Trump unilaterally extended the ceasefire on Tuesday shortly before it expired.
After the war began on February 28, the Trump administration repeatedly stated that the operations would be short and that it expected to be concluded within four to six weeks.
Since that deadline passed, the administration has redefined the timeline, emphasizing that previous conflicts in the United States lasted much longer.
“Unlike the endless wars of the past that lasted for years and decades and failed to show any evidence, Operation Epic Rage achieved a decisive military result in just a few weeks,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said at a news conference Friday morning. he said.
Echoing similar language used by Trump, Hegseth said the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan “took years, decades” with “unclear missions, shifting sands” and “very little to show for it.”
Hegseth insisted that the Iran operation was “laser focused from the very beginning” on the goal of Iran never having a nuclear weapon. In fact, the administration initially put forward varying narratives about the war’s goals, including regime change and concerns about the safety of Iranian protesters.
Trump said Thursday he was in no rush to make a peace deal, saying the war was having less of an impact on both stocks and oil prices than he expected.
