US, Pakistan, Iran holding trilateral face-to-face talks: White House

The United States, Pakistan, and Iran held face-to-face trilateral talks in Islamabad on Saturday, the White House said, as senior officials met in an effort to end the war in the Middle East. A senior White House official said the three sides were meeting directly in person, marking a shift from recent negotiations where Washington and Tehran communicated through intermediaries while seated in separate rooms. The U.S. delegation included Vice President JD Vance, envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, according to the White House. Earlier, Senior Iranian and American delegations met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on Saturday to begin negotiations towards a deal to end the Middle East war unleashed six weeks earlier by US-Israeli strikes on Tehran. With the talks underway at Islamabad's Serena Hotel, Iranian media said the negotiating format going forward had yet to be determined, and it was not clear whether the two sides would meet face-to-face or continue to exchange messages via the Pakistanis. But both sides had arrived at the venue when the Iranian delegation, led by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, met Sharif, followed by US Vice President JD Vance, accompanied by White House envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.