Iran, US send negotiators to Pakistan for new talks after delays – National

US President Donald Trump sends his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to a meeting in Pakistan Iran Secretary of State, the White House said on Friday, as officials in the South Asian country pushed for a revival armistice Talks between the USA and Iran.

The talks scheduled for Saturday come as much of the world worries about a war that has blocked key energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz, clouded the global economic picture and left thousands dead in the Middle East.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview on Fox News Channel that Witkoff and Kushner will meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

“We hope it will be a productive conversation and hopefully we can move the ball toward an agreement,” Leavitt said.

She said Vice President JD Vance will not travel, but he remains “deeply involved” and is willing to travel to Pakistan “if we feel it is a necessary use of his time.”

Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president’s national security team are on “standby” to fly to Pakistan if necessary, Leavitt said.

Earlier on Friday, Araghchi wrote down

Araghchi and the two Trump envoys held hours of indirect talks on Tehran’s nuclear program in Geneva on February 27 but emerged without an agreement. The next day, Israel and the United States began war against Iran.

Leavitt said the president decided to send Witkoff and Kushner to Pakistan “to listen to the Iranians.”

“We have certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last few days,” Leavitt said. She gave no details about what U.S. officials heard.

Islamabad has sought to restore momentum to negotiations between Iran and the United States, which did not resume as expected this week.

Separately, the White House said Friday that Trump had extended the Jones Act exemption for 90 days to make it easier for non-American ships to transport oil and natural gas.

He first announced a 60-day waiver in March to stabilize energy prices and ease oil and gas shipments to the US following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

“New data compiled since the initial waiver was granted showed significantly more shipments were able to reach U.S. ports more quickly,” the White House post on social media said.

The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell on the news, fluctuating between $103 and more than $107 a barrel – still 50% higher than on February 28, when the war began.

Pressure on supplies through the strait has affected global maritime trade flows, including through the Panama Canal, which circumnavigates nearly half the world.

Pakistan has sought to bring U.S. and Iranian officials back to the table after Trump announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire with Iran this week, fulfilling Islamabad’s request for more time for diplomatic contacts.

That has not eased tensions in the strait, a strategic waterway that transports a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas in peacetime.

Iran continues to maintain a stranglehold on traffic through the strait, attacking three ships earlier this week, while the US maintains a blockade of Iranian ports and Trump has ordered the military to “shoot and kill” small boats that could lay mines.

“Iran has an important decision, an opportunity to make a deal, a good deal, a smart deal,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Friday. He said a second US aircraft carrier would join the blockade in a few days.

Hegseth added that the US is “not eager” to reach a deal with Iran, repeating Trump’s previous comments that he has “all the time in the world.”

“Iran knows it still has an open window for smart decisions at the negotiating table. All it needs to do is abandon nuclear weapons in a meaningful and verifiable way,” he said.

Washington already has three aircraft carriers in the region; the USS George HW Bush in the Indian Ocean; the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea; and the USS Gerald R. Ford in the Red Sea.

It is the first time since 2003 that three American airlines will operate in the region at the same time. The force includes 200 aircraft and 15,000 sailors and Marines, US Central Command said.

Since the war began, authorities said at least 3,375 people have been killed in Iran and more than 2,490 people in Lebanon, where new fighting broke out between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah two days after the war began.

In addition, 23 people died in Israel and more than a dozen in the Arab Gulf states. Fifteen Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and 13 US soldiers across the region were killed.

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon also suffered casualties. UNIFIL said Friday that an Indonesian peacekeeper died from wounds sustained in an attack on its base on March 29. This brings the number of troops killed since the outbreak of war to six – four Indonesians and two French.

The situation in Lebanon remained tense a day after Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah by three weeks. Hezbollah did not participate in Washington-brokered diplomacy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed “a process to achieve historic peace between Israel and Lebanon” in a video statement released by his office on Friday.

The Israeli army had previously asked residents of the southern Lebanese village of Deir Aames to evacuate, claiming that Hezbollah was using the village to launch attacks against Israel.

The Israeli military said it shot down a drone over Lebanon after Hezbollah fired a small surface-to-air missile. The militant group, meanwhile, said it shot down an Israeli drone with a surface-to-air missile over the edge of the southern port city of Tyre.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Keaten reported from Geneva. Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok; Koral Saeed in Abu Snan, Israel; Bassem Mroue in Beirut; and Aamer Madhani and Josh Boak in Washington contributed.