JERUSALEM, Israel – Vice President JD Vance is leading President Trump’s negotiating team to Pakistan, where high-stakes talks with Iran are set to begin on Saturday morning. As a fragile ceasefire holds, new details have emerged about what both sides are willing – and not willing – to accept.
Jerusalem’s Temple Mount is open for the first time in more than a month, with the ceasefire in place. However, U.S. officials are making clear that this is only a pause.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine announced, “The Joint Force remains ready, if ordered or called upon to resume combat operations.”
Negotiations are now the focus. The White House talks will center on a new U.S. 15-point proposal, including hard red lines, that counters Iran’s ten-point plan which includes what it calls “its right to enriched uranium.”
“The President’s red lines, namely the end of Iranian enrichment in Iran, have not changed, and the idea that President Trump would ever accept an Iranian wish list as a deal is completely absurd,” declared White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.”
The U.S. is also demanding that the Strait of Hormuz remain open without any tolls or restrictions.
Vice President Vance stated, “The deal is a ceasefire, a negotiation. That’s what we give. And what they give is that the Straits are gonna be reopened. If we don’t see that happening, the president is not gonna abide by our terms if the Iranians are not abiding by their terms.”
Trump promises unprecedented force if Iran doesn’t comply. However, reports indicate that Iran has not yet publicly agreed to those terms, even claiming victory over the U.S. on state television.
Leavitt noted, “What Iran says publicly on feeds to all of you and the press is much different than what they communicate to the United States, the president and his team, privately.”
In a Tuesday press conference, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the U.S. entered the Iran conflict using only ten percent of its combat firepower, but to devastating effect.
Their top leadership was systematically eliminated: the previous Iranian supreme leader, dead, the supreme National Security Council secretary, dead, the supreme leader office advisor, dead, the supreme leader military office chief, the defense minister, no longer with us,” Hegseth remarked.
And new reports indicate that Iran’s current supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was injured in the same airstrike that killed his father, Iran’s former leader, is unconscious and being treated for a severe condition outside Tehran.
While the ceasefire holds, the U.S. and Israel have made clear that it does not extend to Lebanon. Yet, Iran threatened an end to the truce if Israel continues its attacks on its proxy Hezbollah. This comes on the heels of what the Israel Defense Forces spokesman described as the largest coordinated strike on Lebanon since the start of the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized, “I want to convey that we have more goals to complete and we will achieve them either by agreement or by resuming the fighting because we are ready to return to combat at any moment required. The finger is on the trigger.”
Netanyahu stressed that Israel is not surprised by Trump pursuing a peace deal and remains proud to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with American forces for the first time in history.
Hegseth observed, “Our American warriors deserve the credit for this day, but God deserves all the glory.
