U.S. President Donald Trump is dispatching his Iran negotiating team, led by Vice President JD Vance, to Pakistan for talks, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday, adding that the first round of talks would take place on Saturday.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were also part of the team, Leavitt told reporters.
Leavitt said Vance had played a significant and key role on Iran since the beginning, and said conversations had taken place between top levels of the U.S. government and China.
With several of Iran’s veteran political leaders killed in the war, Iran’s delegation is expected to be led by parliament speaker and former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
The confirmation of the talks came after relief over a truce between the United States and Iran gave way to alarm that fighting was still raging across the region, as Israel launched its biggest attacks yet on Lebanon, and Iran struck Gulf neighbors’ oil facilities.
Vance on Wednesday said Tehran’s negotiators thought the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreed to on Tuesday included Lebanon, but the U.S. had in fact not agreed to that.
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“I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” Vance told reporters in Budapest.
The U.S. position was that the ceasefire would focus on Iran and U.S. allies, including Israel and the Gulf Arab states, he added. That position contradicts comments by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key intermediary in the U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks, who had said the truce would include Lebanon.
Vance said Israel had agreed to show restraint in Lebanon, without providing details.
“The Israelis, as I understand it … have actually offered to, frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon, because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful,” Vance said.
Qalibaf said earlier Wednesday that Israel had already violated several conditions of that ceasefire by ramping up its parallel war against the Iran-aligned militia Hezbollah, while the United States had violated the agreement by insisting that Iran abandon its nuclear ambitions.
“In such a situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations were unreasonable,” he said in a statement.
The two sides appeared to be far apart on Iran’s nuclear program — one of the factors that Trump cited as the basis for war.
Trump said Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium, which can be turned into nuclear weapons, and the White House said Iran has indicated it would turn over its existing stocks.
“The United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried … Nuclear ‘Dust,” Trump said on social media.
Qalibaf, however, said it was allowed to continue enriching uranium under the terms of the ceasefire.
Though both the United States and Iran declared victory in a five-week-old war that has killed thousands, their core disputes remained unresolved. Each side is sticking to competing demands for a deal that could shape the Middle East for generations.
Doesn’t the United States of America have a secretary of state that is suppose to be the lead diplomat for the executive branch of government? What exactly is J.D. Vance’s expertise?
Someone please tell him that men are not allowed to do wear makeup in Pakistan.
An unnamed source from Iranian media has about as much credibility as the AP unnamed sources… none.