U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will head to Pakistan on Saturday morning to engage in “direct talks” with their Iranian counterparts, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Friday.
“The Iranians reached out” and asked for an in-person conversation, as President Donald Trump had asked them to do, Leavitt said on Fox News.
“So the president is dispatching Steve and Jared to go hear what they have to say, and we’re hopeful that it will be a productive conversation and hopefully move the ball forward towards a deal,” she said.
The announcement signals a potential diplomatic breakthrough after the prospect of further peace negotiations between the warring powers appeared to stall out earlier this week.
Vice President JD Vance, who led a prior U.S. delegation to Islamabad for an initial round of negotiations with Iran, will not be attending this weekend’s talks, Leavitt said.
“The vice president remains deeply involved in this entire process, and he’ll be standing by here in the United States, along with the president and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and the entire national security team for updates,” she said.
“And of course, everyone will be on standby to fly to Pakistan if necessary. But first, Steve and Jared will be going over there to report back to the president, the vice president, and the rest of the team.”
Trump told Reuters in a phone call later Friday that Iran will be “making an offer,” adding that he did not know what it would be yet and “we’ll have to see.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, earlier Friday said he was “embarking on a timely tour” of Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow in order to “closely coordinate with our partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments.”
The Islamabad talks will be “intermediated by the Pakistanis,” Leavitt said in the Fox interview.
The first round of peace talks, held nearly two weeks ago in Islamabad and led on the U.S. side by Vance, ended with no deal.
A U.S. delegation including Vance was expected to head back to Pakistan earlier this week for further negotiations, but the trip was delayed as Iranian officials reportedly said they would not show up.
Much of the mutual prickliness has centered on the Strait of Hormuz, the major oil-shipping route that has seen traffic slow to a trickle amid Iranian threats and, as of last week, a retaliatory U.S. naval blockade.
Trump, in the Reuters interview, said the U.S. will not lift its blockade of Iranian ports until a deal is struck.
The tensions have further strained an already-fragile ceasefire, which was announced April 7 amid threats by Trump that Iran’s “whole civilization will die” unless a deal is struck.
Despite the continued stress in the strait, Trump on Tuesday unilaterally extended the ceasefire shortly before it was set to expire.
After the war started on Feb. 28, the Trump administration repeatedly said that it expected operations to be brief and to conclude within four to six weeks.
Since passing that deadline, the administration has reframed its timeline, while stressing that prior U.S. conflicts have lasted far longer.
“Unlike the endless wars of the past that dragged on for years and for decades with little to show for it, Operation Epic Fury has delivered a decisive military result in just weeks,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a press briefing Friday morning.
Wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan “all took years, decades,” with “vague missions, shifting sands” and a “little to show for it,” Hegseth said, echoing similar language used by Trump.
Hegseth insisted the Iran operation “has been laser-focused from the very start” on the goal of Iran never getting a nuclear weapon. In fact, the administration originally put forward shifting narratives about the war’s objectives, including regime change and concern about the safety of Iranian protestors.
Trump said Thursday that he is in no rush to make a peace deal, saying the war has had less of an effect on both stocks and oil prices than he had expected.