Vice President JD Vance will lead the US negotiating team in talks that will take place in Islamabad this weekend, the White House announced Wednesday.

Scheduling the talks for Saturday, as well as Washington’s selection of such a senior official to participate in them, appeared to offer a degree of momentum to a very fragile two-week ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran that was announced overnight Tuesday-Wednesday.

Vance will be joined by US President Donald Trump’s top envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing.

Previous reports claimed the talks would be on Friday and that Vance may not attend for security reasons.

Asked about security concerns about sending Vance to Pakistan, Leavitt said the administration fully trusts the US Secret Service to keep the vice president and the entire negotiating team safe.

Leavitt did not say whether the negotiations would be direct or through mediators, as the Iranians tend to prefer.

Iran is said to also prefer that Vance lead negotiations on behalf of the US, as officials in Tehran have accused Witkoff and Kushner of misrepresenting Tehran’s positions during previous rounds of negotiations. Vance is also one of the only administration officials who is reported to have opposed launching the war against Iran.

Speaking at an event in Budapest during his trip to Hungary earlier Wednesday, Vance said that Trump is “impatient” about making progress toward ending the Iran war and has instructed his negotiating team to engage the Iranians in good faith.

‘Legitimate misunderstanding’

But almost as soon as the ceasefire was announced, questions began to pile up about its longevity.

Iran has accused Israel of targeting one of its oil refineries, while Gulf countries reported coming under Iranian drone and missile fire throughout much of Wednesday after Israel was targeted in numerous missile attacks overnight.

And while Pakistani mediators in announcing the ceasefire said that it covered Lebanon, the US and Israel have insisted otherwise and IDF strikes targeting Hezbollah reached levels on Wednesday not seen since the beginning of the war.

Vance claimed a “legitimate misunderstanding” led Iran to believe that Lebanon was covered by the ceasefire.

“I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, [but] we never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case,” Vance told reporters before boarding a plane back to the US from Hungary.

JD Vance: "I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made that promise, we never indicated that was gonna be the case." pic.twitter.com/XMEMrDvxe1 Advertisement if(typeof rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner != "function" || !rgb_remove_toi_dfp_banner("#336x280_Middle_2")){ window.tude = window.tude || { cmd: [] }; tude.cmd.push(function() { if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("rgbmedia-app") > -1){ tude.setDeviceType("mobile"); } tude.refreshAdsViaDivMappings([ { divId: '336x280_Middle_2', baseDivId: '336x280_Middle_2', } ]); }); } — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 8, 2026

JD Vance: "I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't.........

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