Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser Jared Kushner will head to Islamabad, Pakistan, on Saturday for another round of negotiations with Iran, and Vice President JD Vance “is on standby” and could potentially join them there. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the plans on Friday afternoon, first on Fox News Channel’s America Reports and then to reporters moments later. “As you know, and I spoke about it earlier this week, the president was flexible in granting an extension of this ceasefire. Throughout this time, the President has decided to dispatch Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner back to Islamabad. The Iranians want to talk,” Leavitt told reporters. “They want to talk in person. So the President is, as I’ve said many, many times to all of you, always willing to give diplomacy a chance,” she added. Leavitt, who said on America Reports that Witkoff and Kushner are scheduled to depart Saturday morning, told reporters that President Donald Trump, Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will await updates in Washington, DC. “The Vice President, I understand, is on standby and will be willing to dispatch to Pakistan if we feel it’s a necessary use of his time,” she added. Witkoff and Kushner’s scheduled departure comes after plans for Vance to head to Islamabad earlier this week never materialized in the lead-up to the deadline of the initial two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran, which Trump extended Tuesday night. Witkoff and Kushner were going to travel with Vance, as Breitbart News reported. In announcing the extension in a Truth Social post, Trump said that the Iranian government is “seriously fractured,” and he would continue the ceasefire until Iran could come forth “with a unified proposal.” On Wednesday, Leavitt told reporters that Trump “has not set a firm deadline to receive an Iranian proposal,” discrediting anonymously-sourced reporting that he was willing to give the Iranians a three-to-five-day window. COMMENTS Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.
Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser Jared Kushner will head to Islamabad, Pakistan, on Saturday for another round of negotiations with Iran, and Vice President JD Vance “is on standby” and could potentially join them there. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announc…
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International mediators have proposed a 10-day ceasefire between the United States and Iran, according to a senior Iranian official cited in reports. The measure is described as intended to reduce hostilities and allow renewed talks on a prior interim agreement.
Both sides are assessing next steps in the current regional security situation.
Reports indicate that a US-Iran ceasefire has broken down amid renewed fighting, with the potential impact of mediation efforts by Pakistan, Qatar, and Oman remaining unclear. Earlier diplomatic steps included a June memorandum of understanding between the parties for further negotiations and talks hosted in Geneva in February.
The summary also references Europe’s historical role in diplomacy, including the 1814-15 Congress of Vienna.
Donald Trump stated in a Fox News interview that his representatives had spoken with Iranian officials an hour earlier and that those officials wanted to make a deal to end the conflict, though he noted they had broken prior agreements and expressed uncertainty about whether one would be reached.
He added that people do not want to die and that Iran would need to proceed carefully to avoid further losses. The remarks come amid an ongoing US-Iran conflict that has involved casualties and shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, with some social media users criticizing the repetition of similar statements.
Why the Iran-US ceasefire is falling apart Iran and the US have resumed fighting because they don’t see each other as ‘reliable negotiating partners’, says analyst Ali Vaez. Neither Iran nor the United States seems able to deliver a “knockout blow at an acceptable price” to the other side, and both know “they have no choice other than engaging in diplomacy”, but they’re not ready to make uncomfortable concessions, argues Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at International Crisis Group.
Vaez tells host Steve Clemons that Tehran and Washington are trying to “enforce their own interpretation” of the ceasefire agreement they signed last month. President Trump has become “frustrated” with diplomacy because he’s not seeing “the kind of quick results that he likes to see”, Vaez says.