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Vice President J.D. Vance is set to be a voice for peace and advocacy for the United States this weekend as he heads to Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan, with the U.S. negotiating team amid a fragile ceasefire with Iran.
“I can announce that the president is dispatching his negotiating team, led by Vice President J.D Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Mr. Kushner, to Islamabad for talks this weekend,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt during a briefing on Wednesday.
Leavitt said the first round of talks is scheduled for Saturday.
This comes after President Trump announced a 14-day ceasefire, fragile as it may be, with Iran, amid a complex combat operation in the region.
“The United States will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change!” the president said Tuesday night. “There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust.’”
He also announced tariff and sanction relief for Iran. The ceasefire and the possibility for lasting peace are contingent upon the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Secretary Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that there was an “uptick in traffic in the Strait today,” and she said that, behind closed doors, the president has received reports that the safe reopening of the Strait “is what’s taking place.”
While the ceasefire remains tenuously in place, America’s junior military partner in the operation, Israel, has continued to fiercely attack targets in the region.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the ceasefire agreement does not include Lebanon. As of Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes, purportedly in pursuit of Hezbollah militants, swept across Lebanon, levying a shockingly high death toll of at least 254 people, according to CBC.
“We continue to strike them with all our might; together we have given them the strongest blow that they have suffered since the pagers – we have attacked 100 targets in ten minutes, in places they were certain were immune and bulletproof,” Netanyahu said in a broadcasted statement.
Secretary Leavitt echoed Netanyahu’s statements on Wednesday during her briefing, noting, “Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire, that has been relayed to all parties involved in the ceasefire.”
Interestingly, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country is responsible for helping broker this ceasefire agreement, originally announced that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire agreement: “With the greatest humility, I am pleased to announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote Tuesday.
Amid the evolving, and sometimes confusing, situation, President Donald Trump offered a bit of clarity on the many narratives in the media, writing on Wednesday morning that the real negotiations are happening “behind closed doors.”
“Numerous Agreements, Lists, and Letters are being sent out by people that have absolutely nothing to do with the U.S.A. / Iran Negotiation, in many cases, they are total Fraudsters, Charlatans, and WORSE,” he said. “…There is only one group of meaningful ‘POINTS’ that are acceptable to the United States, and we will be discussing them behind closed doors during these Negotiations. These are the POINTS that are the basis on which we agreed to a CEASEFIRE. It is something that is reasonable, and can easily be dispensed with.”
