US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will travel to Pakistan on Saturday for direct talks with Iran.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed their trip in an interview with Fox News on Friday.
"I can confirm that Special Envoy Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be off to Pakistan again tomorrow morning to engage in direct talks with representatives from the Iranian delegation," she said.
Leavitt added that the talks will be mediated by Pakistan. “The Iranians reached out, as the President called on them to do, and asked for this in-person conversation, so 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," she said.
CNN reported earlier on Friday that Trump is planning to send Witkoff and Kushner to Pakistan to participate in talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in the coming days.
Vice President JD Vance, who headed the US delegation in the previous round of talks, is not currently planning to attend, given that Iran’s Speaker of the Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, is not participating either, the officials said. Ghalibaf is viewed internally by White House officials as the head of the Iran delegation and Vance’s counterpart.
However, the Vice President will be on standby to travel to Islamabad if talks progress, the officials said.
Trump announced on Tuesday that due to the division in Iran, the ceasefire in Iran would be extended for an unspecified amount of time, to allow the leadership time to submit a proposal for a deal.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump made clear that the US naval blockade will remain in place until an Iranian proposal is submitted.
On Thursday, Trump was asked how long he is willing to wait for Iran to submit a proposal to end the war and replied he was in “no rush".
Trump told reporters that Iran's leaders are "fighting like cats and dogs for who's going to control" the country.
“We’ve taken out their military. We’ve hit about 75 percent of our targets. We stopped a little early because they wanted to have some peace, and we have a blockade that’s 100 percent effective. And they’re getting no business," he said.
Trump further stated, “They want to make a deal. We have been speaking to them, but they don’t even know who’s leading the country. They’re in turmoil."
“They came to us, and they said, 'We will agree to open the Strait,' and all my people were happy. Everybody was happy-except me. I said, ‘Wait a minute. If we open this strait, that means they’re going to make 500 million dollars a day. I don’t want them to make 500 million dollars a day until they settle this thing, so I’m the one that kept it closed. We have total control of it. And it’ll open when they make a deal or something else happens," continued Trump.
The President also said he could make a deal with Iran “right now," but he wants it to be “everlasting" rather than temporary.
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)