US sending envoys to Pakistan, raising hopes of talks with Iran’s Araghchi

xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoToggle PlayUS sends envoys to Pakistan as Iranian FM heads for talks

United States President Donald Trump is sending envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan as Iran’s foreign minister arrived in the country, raising hopes of new talks on ending the US-Israeli war on Iran amid a fragile ceasefire and growing tensions over control of the Hormuz Strait.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday that US envoys would sit down with Abbas Araghchi, expressing hope that parties would “move the ball forward to a deal”, but it remained unclear whether the Iranian delegation had agreed to hold talks.

Writing on X on Friday, Iran’s top diplomat had said he was off on a “timely tour of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow”, to coordinate on “bilateral matters”, with no specific mention of any intention to meet with US negotiators.

Earlier, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran had a chance to make a “good deal”. “Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely … at the negotiating table,” he said, adding that all they had to do was “abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways”.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said a “senior official” had “made it clear” to him that there would not be any US-Iran talks in Pakistan.

“These regional partners all have their own ideas on how to solve this deadlock, but for the moment, Iran has said it would not meet for a new round of talks,” he said.

Reports on Araghchi’s trip in Iranian state media made no mention of Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at talks with a US delegation earlier this month that ended with no breakthrough.

US Vice President JD Vance also participated in the first round of talks, but is not travelling to Pakistan on this occasion, though Leavitt said he remained “deeply involved” and was on “standby” to join if needed.

She said Trump decided to send Witkoff and Kushner to Pakistan “to hear the Iranians out”. “We’ve certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last couple of days,” she maintained, without offering any further details.

Reporting from Washington, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said there appeared to be a “graded process” in place, describing it as “an initial exploratory phase” that could lead to “higher-level engagement if negotiations deepen”.

A new round of talks had been expected to start on Tuesday but did not materialise, with Iran saying it was not yet ready to commit to attending.

Trump had unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators as the US continued its blockade on Iranian ports.

Iran says it will not stop blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime trade chokepoint, until Trump lifts his blockade. On Friday, the US applied more pressure on Tehran by freezing $344m in cryptocurrency assets in a bid to “systematically degrade Tehran’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds”.