Vice President JD Vance will not travel to Pakistan for the next round of peace talks with Iran.
The longtime anti-interventionist VP, who led the U.S. delegation in the first round of talks that collapsed on April 12, will remain stateside when negotiations resume on Saturday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed Friday.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, will still make the trip.
Leavitt suggested that Vance’s absence is not a case of him being sidelined.
Rather, she said Vance will remain on “standby” to travel to Islamabad if peace talks become serious, so he does not waste his time flying halfway around the world for nothing.
“Steve and Jared will be heading to Pakistan tomorrow to hear the Iranians out,” she said. “The president, the vice president, the secretary of state, will be waiting here in the United States for updates, and the vice president, I understand, is on standby and will be willing to dispatch to Pakistan if we feel it’s a necessary use of his time.”
Leavitt vaguely said there has been “some progress” in reaching a permanent peace deal with Iran—but apparently not close enough for the VP to be a part of the next round of in-person talks.
“We’ve certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last couple of days,” she said.
Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, will also not travel to Islamabad for the next round of talks.
Much attention has been paid to Vance’s stance on the war with Iran, which is unpopular with most Americans, since Trump ordered strikes against the country on Feb. 28. While Vance has publicly supported the war and Trump thus far, some allies feel he has not done so as vehemently as they would have liked him to, Politico reported last month.
Vance criticized past U.S. intervention in the Middle East while in the Senate, writing in 2023, “Twenty years ago, we invaded Iraq. The war killed many innocent Iraqis and Americans. It destroyed the oldest Christian populations in the world. It cost over $1 trillion and turned Iraq into a satellite of Iran. It was an unforced disaster, and I pray that we learn its lessons.”
The VP says things are different this time because Trump is calling the shots. He said from the Oval Office last month that “we have a smart president, whereas in the past we’ve had dumb presidents.”
“I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people, and to make sure the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated,” he said.
