Vice President JD Vance on Friday warned Iran not to “play” the US as he headed overseas for negotiations aimed at ending the war.
President Donald Trump has tasked the member of his inner circle who has seemed to be the most reluctant defender of the 6-week-old conflict with Iran to now find a resolution and stave off the US president’s astonishing threat to wipe out its “whole civilisation.”
Vance, who has long been sceptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended conflicts, set off Friday to lead mediated talks with Iran in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
“If the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand,” Vance told reporters before boarding Air Force Two to make his way to the talks in Pakistan. But he added, “If they’re gonna try and play us, then they’re gonna find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.”
Vance also said that Trump “gave us some pretty clear guidelines” on how talks should go, but he didn’t elaborate. He did not take questions from reporters travelling with him.
Vance’s trip comes as a tenuous, temporary ceasefire appears to be on the precipice of collapsing. The chasm between Iran’s public demands and those from the US and its partner Israel seem irreconcilable. And in the US, where Vance might ask voters in two years’ time to make him the next president, there is growing political and economic pressure to wrap it up.
Vance is joined by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who took part in three rounds of indirect talks with Iranian negotiators aimed at settling US concerns about Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic weapons programs and its support for armed proxy groups in the Middle East before Trump and Israel launched the war against Iran on 28 February.
The White House has provided scant detail about the format of the talks — whether they will be direct or indirect — and has not provided specific expectations for the meeting.
But the arrival of Vance for negotiations marks a rare moment of high-level US government engagement with the Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the most direct contact had been when President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in September 2013 called newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Iran’s nuclear program.
Starmer calls ceasefire ‘fragile’
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer held talks with top Qatari officials on a visit to the Gulf nation on Friday, discussing what he termed the “fragile” ceasefire in the Iran war.
Starmer said there was a sense “that more work is needed, that the Strait of Hormuz has to be part of the solution. A very strong sense that there can’t be tolling or restrictions on that navigation.”
Responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to leave NATO, Starmer stressed that the trans-Atlantic alliance had kept members safe for decades, but added “there should be a stronger European element”.
Trump dubbed allies “cowards,” and said NATO was “a paper tiger.” After meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday in the White House, Trump said NATO had not been there for the US and wouldn’t be there again if needed.
European leaders have remained on the sidelines of the US-Israel war with Iran but have tried to make their voices heard to help shore up a shaky ceasefire, quell fighting in Lebanon and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The war has put Europe in an uneasy position trying to maintain its support for the US as a key NATO ally and also withstand occasional blowback from Trump for not joining in the fight and offering limited use of its military bases.
Israel expels Spain from Gaza monitoring body
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday expelled Spain from participating in a US-led international body monitoring Gaza.
“I have instructed today to remove Spain’s representatives from the coordination centre in Kiryat Gat, after Spain has chosen repeatedly to stand against Israel,” Netanyahu said.
A US-led multinational body that was created in October 2025 to monitor the implementation of the Trump-sponsored peace deal in Gaza and based in Kiryat Gat in southern Gaza.
Around 200 US troops are working alongside the Israeli military and delegations from other countries at the centre, planning the stabilisation and reconstruction of Gaza.
Netanyahu added that he will not allow any country with anti-Israeli policies to take part in efforts in the Middle East.
“I do not intend to allow any country to wage a diplomatic war against us without paying an immediate price.”