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A US delegation led by Vice President JD Vance is set to travel to Pakistan today (Tuesday) to participate in Iran-related truce talks, with arrival in Islamabad expected to follow on Wednesday, according to US media reports.
US President Donald Trump confirmed the development in an interview with the New York Post, saying he would be willing to meet Iranian leaders himself if progress is made.
Separately, Axios reported, citing US sources, that Vance will travel to Pakistan on Tuesday for the Iran talks.
The delegation is also expected to include Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, according to Axios.
If confirmed, it would mark a repeat of the US team that took part in the first round of talks held in Islamabad on April 11.
The US delegation was due to head to Pakistan "soon", a source familiar with the plan told AFP on Monday, with Trump telling PBS News that Iran was "supposed to be there. We agreed to be there".
He said that if the ceasefire ended without a peace deal, "then lots of bombs start going off", separately telling Bloomberg News it was "highly unlikely" he would extend the two-week truce.
Based on its start time, the truce theoretically expires overnight Tuesday, Tehran time, though in his comments to Bloomberg, Trump said the end was a day later, on Wednesday evening Washington time.
Meanwhile, mediator Pakistan — which brokered a two-week ceasefire between the two sides on April 8 — was making efforts to end the US naval blockade of Iranian ports and to ensure Iran's participation in the peace talks.
With the ceasefire set to expire, a senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran was "positively reviewing" its participation following Pakistan's efforts, but no final decision had been made.
The comments conveyed a clear change of tone from earlier statements ruling out attendance and pledging to retaliate for US aggression.
Hours later, the New York Times, citing two senior Iranian officials, reported that an Iranian delegation was planning to travel to Islamabad for the negotiations.
Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf will attend if Vance attends the sitting, the publication quoted the officials as saying.
A White House official said Vice President JD Vance would lead the delegation, joined by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump has been under pressure to find an off-ramp since Tehran moved to choke off the Strait of Hormuz.
But the naval blockade to cut off Iran's oil revenues and the seizure of a cargo ship allegedly trying to evade it have drawn renewed threats from Tehran instead of pressuring them back to the negotiating table.
The ISNA news agency cited a spokesperson for Iran's central command centre as warning that the military "will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy", while Tasnim reported Tehran had sent drones in the direction of US military ships.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have warned that any vessel attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz without permission "will be targeted".
Chinese President Xi Jinping told Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call on Monday that "normal traffic" through the vital conduit for oil and gas shipments "should be maintained", state media said.
A separate ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon took effect on Friday and included Hezbollah, whose rocket fire in support of Iran drew Lebanon into the war.
Israel's military on Monday warned Lebanese civilians against returning to dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, claiming Hezbollah's activities were violating the truce.
Nonetheless, thousands of displaced residents have begun making their way back to southern Lebanon since the ceasefire began.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told AFP on Monday his group would work to break the "Yellow Line" that Israel has established in the south, even as he said it wanted "the ceasefire to continue".
Another major issue in the US-Iran negotiations has been Tehran's stockpile of enriched uranium, which Trump said on Friday it had agreed to hand over.
But Iran's foreign ministry has said the stockpile, thought to be buried from US bombing in last June's 12-day war, was "not going to be transferred anywhere".
