Iran said it is done dealing with the two emissaries President Donald Trump has tasked with leading negotiations in the Middle East.
The country, which Trump began striking over three weeks ago, is not keen on any more attempts at negotiations with Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, or Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, both of whom were leading the nuclear negotiations with Iran before the war.
Iran now says it will only engage in negotiations with Vice President J.D. Vance, according to a report in The Guardian.
At the time that Trump launched his deadly war in Iran, the U.S. and Iran were engaged in negotiations over the country’s nuclear program.
Since the war was launched, the Iranian regime has viewed those negotiations, headed by Witkoff and Kushner, as a front by the Trump administration to trick Iran into thinking they were negotiating in good faith, when the U.S. really just wanted to attack.
“With the previous negotiating team, there’s no chance,” one diplomatic source told the Guardian. “The Iranian side regards the request for negotiations as another round of deception for the US-Israeli regime to find out a loophole to aggravate the strikes again.”
The source noted that Iran sees Vance as a more acceptable diplomatic figure than Witkoff and Kushner, especially as Vance is, at his core, a skeptic of U.S. military action in the Middle East.
Vance, a Marine who served in public affairs during the Iraq War, has traditionally been wary of U.S. foreign intervention throughout his career in politics.
“If the negotiations are going to have any outcome, JD Vance should join,” the source told the outlet. “With Witkoff and Kushner, nothing will come out of it. We have seen that in the past.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is pushing for his country to “facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks” between the U.S. and Iran in Islamabad.
He has spoken to Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, where they “agreed on the urgent need for de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy,” according to an official read-out.
“Subject to concurrence by the US and Iran, Pakistan stands ready and honored to be the host to facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks for a comprehensive settlement of the ongoing conflict,” Sharif posted on X on Tuesday.
The country has yet to be officially named as a host for any talks between the two sides. Other venues in Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar have been discussed, but the Guardian reported that Tehran’s preference was to have the talks in Islamabad.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment.
Over the weekend, Trump gave Iran an ultimatum in which he said he would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it did not open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours of his Truth Social threat.
The president’s self-imposed timeline came and went, as he walked back his threat and claimed to have been in “GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS” with the Iranians.
Iran has refuted Trump’s claim and said no such talks had transpired, calling Trump’s claim “an attempt to #escape his recent threat on Iran’s power infrastructure.”
Iran’s closure of the Strait has become a headache for the White House, as gas and oil prices have skyrocketed domestically. At the same time, the Strait has become the strongest point of leverage for Iran as it fights the U.S.
