This comes after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced a “timely tour” to Pakistan.
After days of stalemate, the United States has confirmed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will head to Pakistan on Saturday for a new round of talks with Iran.
“I can confirm Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be off to Pakistan again tomorrow morning to engage in talks… with representatives from the Iranian delegation,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Friday.
“The Iranians reached out, as the US president called on them to do, and asked for this in-person conversation,” she said.
Leavitt added that everyone will be on standby to fly to Pakistan if necessary, but first, these top aides will go there and report back on the situation to US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Steve Witkoff, the US Special Envoy to the Middle East, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, have been central to the first round of talks held in Pakistan on April 11 and 12.
Both US Vice President JD Vance and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the leader of the Iranian negotiating team in the first round of talks, will notably be absent from the second round of talks.
This comes after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced a “timely tour” to Pakistan, Oman and Russia focused on “bilateral matters and regional developments”.
“Embarking on a timely tour of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow. The purpose of my visits is to closely coordinate with our partners on bilateral matters and consult on regional developments. Our neighbours are our priority”, he wrote on X.
Earlier, Iran said that it won’t hold talks until the US lifts its blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, while the US side was demanding verifiable assurances that Tehran will end its nuclear programme and lift its own blockade of the strait.
At a Pentagon briefing on Friday, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said Trump had said the US “had all the time in the world and we are not anxious for a deal”.
He added that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal, a wise deal”.
