Vance expects U.S., Iran war negotiations to be positive

Vance spoke to reporters before boarding Air Force Two at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to fly to Pakistan for those talks, set to begin Saturday in Islamabad.

But Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a reported negotiator for Tehran, appeared to pour cold water on the meetings on Friday morning.

“Two of the measures mutually agreed upon between the parties have yet to be implemented: a ceasefire in Lebanon and the release of Iran’s blocked assets prior to the commencement of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said in a post on X.

“These two matters must be fulfilled before negotiations begin,” he wrote.

The post puts further strain on an already fragile two-week ceasefire, which began Tuesday and has been repeatedly threatened since.

Iran has accused the U.S. of violating the ceasefire, pointing in part to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has expressed frustration with Iran continuing to block most shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

The strait is the world’s most vital shipping route for oil. Before the war, 20% of the world’s crude was shipped through that passage.

“We’re looking forward to the negotiation,” Vance said Friday. “I think it’s going to be positive.”

“As the president of the United States said, if the Iranians are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand,” Vance said.

“If they’re going to try to play us, then they’re going to find that the negotiating team is not that receptive,” he added. “So we’re trying to have a positive negotiation. The president … gave us some pretty clear guidelines, and we’re going to see.”

The U.S. delegation will include Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, according to the White House.

Ghalibaf and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are reportedly leading Tehran’s team.

In an announcement Tuesday evening, Trump said that the U.S. would agree to a two-week suspension of hostilities subject to Iran agreeing to a complete and immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

But since then, vessel traffic through the strait remains nearly as tightly throttled as it has been since the war began on Feb. 28.

In a Truth Social post on Thursday evening, Trump fumed, “There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!”

Iran “is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” the president wrote in a follow-up post. “That is not the agreement we have!”