US sends JD Vance-led team to Pakistan for Iran talks as Israel strikes Lebanon, raising doubts over fragile ceasefire. Photo: White House.
US President Donald Trump is dispatching his Iran negotiating team, led by Vice President JD Vance, to Pakistan, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday, adding that the first round of talks would take place on Saturday. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were also part of the team, Leavitt told reporters.
Leavitt said Vance had played a significant and key role on Iran since the beginning, and said conversations had taken place between top levels of the U.S. government and China.
As the Trump team prepares for the Islamabad talks, Israel pounded Lebanon with its heaviest strikes yet on Wednesday, killing hundreds of people and drawing a threat of retaliation from Iran.
Tehran suggested it would be “unreasonable” to proceed with talks to forge a permanent peace deal with the United States.
The warning from Iran’s lead negotiator, parliament speaker Mohammed Bager Qalibaf, laid bare the continued volatility in the region following Tuesday’s ceasefire announcement by President Donald Trump. The two sides have laid out sharply contrasting agendas for peace talks set to start on Saturday, but it was unclear whether the two-week ceasefire would hold until then.
Qalibaf said Israel had already violated several conditions of that ceasefire by ramping up its parallel war against the Iran-aligned militia Hezbollah, while the U.S had violated the agreement by insisting that Iran abandon its nuclear ambitions.
“In such a situation, a bilateral ceasefire or negotiations were unreasonable,” he said in a statement.
Israel and the United States both said the two-week ceasefire did not cover Lebanon, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strikes would continue.
“I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who will lead the U.S. delegation, told reporters in Budapest.
The two sides appeared to be far apart on Iran’s nuclear program as well – one of the factors that Trump cited as the basis for war.
Trump said Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium, which can be turned into nuclear weapons, and the White House said Iran has indicated it would turn over its existing stocks.
“The United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried … Nuclear ‘Dust,'” Trump said on social media.
Qalibaf, however, said it was allowed to continue enriching uranium under the terms of the ceasefire.
Though both the United States and Iran declared victory in a five-week-old war that has killed thousands, their core disputes remained unresolved. Each side is sticking to competing demands for a deal that could shape the Middle East for generations.
‘FINGER ON THE TRIGGER’
Netanyahu said Israel had its “finger on the trigger” and was prepared to return to fighting at “any moment.”
Lebanon’s civil defense service said 254 people had been killed in Israel’s strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday. The highest toll was in the capital Beirut, where Israeli strikes killed 91 people, it said. Residents said some of the Israeli strikes had come without the usual warnings for civilians to evacuate.
Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, said early Thursday that it fired rockets at northern Israel in response to “ceasefire violations.”
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned “in the strongest possible terms” what he called indiscriminate Israeli attacks on Lebanon, saying in a statement on X that Lebanon “must be fully covered” by the ceasefire.
Leaders of 13 European countries, Japan and Canada also issued a joint statement welcoming the ceasefire and calling for a swift end to hostilities in order to “avert a severe global energy crisis.”
Iran also struck oil facilities in nearby Gulf countries, including a pipeline in Saudi Arabia that has been used to bypass the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, according to an oil industry source. Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE also reported missile and drone strikes.
The Strait of Hormuz remained shut to vessels sailing without a permit and shippers said they needed more clarity before resuming transit.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy posted a map showing alternative shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz to help ships avoid naval mines, the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA said.
In a flurry of online posts, Trump announced new tariffs of 50% on all goods from any country that supplies arms to Iran, though he lacks the authority to do so.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Zubair Amin is a Senior Journalist at NewsX with over seven years of experience in reporting and editorial work. He has written for leading national and international publications, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, The Wire, Article 14, Mongabay, News9, among others. His primary focus is on international affairs, with a strong interest in US politics and policy. He also writes on West Asia, Indian polity, and constitutional issues. Zubair tweets at zubaiyr.amin
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