US Vice President JD Vance is expected to lead a potential second round of talks with Iranian officials should negotiations lead to another face-to-face sit down before the ceasefire expires next week, sources familiar with the talks told CNN on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who headed diplomatic talks since before the war began, are also expected to attend any possible second meeting, the sources said.
Trump put his three top advisers in charge of finding a diplomatic off-ramp to the war and continues to trust them to carry that out, the sources said. Vance, Witkoff and Kushner have engaged with the Iranians and intermediaries in the days since Saturday’s marathon 21-hour session in Pakistan as they work toward a deal.
CNN previously reported that Trump officials are internally discussing details for a potential second meeting, though as of Tuesday evening it remained unclear whether such a meeting would materialize.
Trump told The New York Post earlier Tuesday that “something could be happening" over the next two days in Pakistan as US and Iran try to come back to the negotiating table.
“Future talks are under discussion, but nothing has been scheduled at this time," a US official told CNN.
Vance addressed a Turning Point USA event in Georgia earlier on Tuesday, saying that there is “a lot of mistrust" between the US and Iran, but also said that he is optimistic about the prospects of a deal even though the weekend meeting in Islamabad did not result in a deal.
“It's a meeting that had never before happened. We had never had a meeting like that where you have the person who's effectively running the country in Iran sitting across from the Vice President of the United States," Vance said of the meetings in Islamabad.
“Look, honestly, after 49 years, there's a lot of mistrust between Iran and the United States of America. You're not going to solve that problem overnight. But yeah, I think the people we're sitting across from wanted to make a deal. And I know the President of the United States told us to go out there and negotiate in good faith. That's what we did. That's what we're going to keep on doing. You never know though," he added.