US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will depart on Saturday for Pakistan where they will hold direct talks with Iranian negotiators, the White House announced on Friday.
“Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be off to Pakistan again tomorrow morning to engage in direct talks intermediated by the Pakistanis… with representatives from the Iranian delegation,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Fox interview.
“The Iranians reached out… and asked for this in-person conversation. 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,” Leavitt added.
Leavitt didn’t specify with whom the US envoys would meet, but she appeared to be referring to Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who arrived in Islamabad on Friday evening.
However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a post on X that there were no plans for a meeting, and that Tehran’s “observations” would be conveyed to Pakistani officials.
While US Vice President JD Vance headed the US negotiating team during the first round of talks with Iran in Pakistan earlier this month, he was not slated to join Witkoff and Kushner. Vance’s counterpart in the talks was Iran parliament speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, who did not make the trip with Araghchi.
CNN reported that Vance would be on standby to travel to Islamabad if negotiations progress.
Araghchi was set to discuss proposals for restarting peace talks with the United States while in Islamabad.
Araghchi said in a Friday statement on X that he was embarking on visits to Pakistan, Oman and Russia to coordinate with partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments, claiming that Iran’s neighbors remained Tehran’s priority, even though Tehran fired relentlessly on many of them during the war.
Two Pakistani government sources aware of the discussions said Araghchi’s visit would be a brief one to discuss Iran’s proposals for talks with the US, which mediator Pakistan would then convey to Washington.
Trump indicated to Reuters in a phone interview that Iran would soon submit a proposal to the US.
“They’re making an offer, and we’ll have to see,” Trump said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking around the same time the news emerged, told a briefing that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal” with the United States.
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely … at the negotiating table. All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways,” he said.
Reports on Araghchi’s trip in Iranian state media and the Pakistani sources made no mention of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at the only talks held so far, earlier this month.
Pakistani sources had said earlier that a US logistics and security team was already in place in Islamabad for potential talks.
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