WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told NBC News on Thursday that he was “very optimistic” a peace deal with Iran was within reach as a diplomatic delegation led by Vice President JD Vance prepared to head to Pakistan for high-stakes talks aimed at ending the nearly six-week conflict.
Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” Trump said during a phone interview. “They’re agreeing to all the things that they have to agree to. Remember, they’ve been conquered. They have no military.”
“If they don’t make a deal, it’s going to be very painful,” Trump added.
But the tentative ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran already showed signs of strain, as Israeli forces continued carrying out attacks across southern Lebanon, where the Tehran-backed Hezbollah militant group is based.
In a phone call Wednesday, Trump asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pull back on the strikes to help ensure the success of the upcoming negotiations, two senior administration officials told NBC News. Trump confirmed that conversation in his interview with NBC News on Thursday, saying the Israelis were “scaling back” operations in Lebanon.
“I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump said. Vance, speaking to reporters in Hungary on Wednesday, used similar rhetoric, saying the Israelis may “check themselves a little bit” in the assault on Lebanon.
European leaders have likewise pleaded for Lebanon to be included in the limited ceasefire. Netanyahu has shown no public indication he’s prepared to scale back the strikes, though on Thursday he said his government will seek “direct negotiations” with Lebanon.
“I insisted that the temporary ceasefire with Iran not include Hezbollah, and we continue to strike them forcefully,” Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday, adding that the “deep friendship” between Israel’s government and Trump was “changing the face of the Middle East.”
David Miliband, former British foreign secretary who is currently the president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, said there were concerns in Beirut last week that Lebanon might be left out of any agreements between the U.S., Israel and Iran.
“I found a lot of anger at Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into the war, anger at Israel for the strikes, anger at the U.S. for starting the war and anger at their own government for its lack of agency” to do anything about it, Miliband told NBC News, describing his conversations while in Lebanon.
Trump announced a two-week pause in bombing on Tuesday after threatening that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not open the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passageway choked off in the conflict. But the leaders disagree on the terms; Trump and Netanyahu say Lebanon is not part of the agreement, yet Iran says it is.
At least 250 civilians were killed in Lebanon on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, in what Israel described as its largest offensive yet against Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, only five ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, the first day of the fragile truce, according to MarineTraffic, a ship tracking and maritime analytics provider. All five vessels were bulk carriers, and none were oil and gas tankers, MarineTraffic reported — raising questions about whether Iran is actually loosening its stranglehold on the crucial commercial waterway. Two had crossed by Thursday midday.
In notable comments online, the United Arab Emirates’ industry minister blasted the status quo around the strait. “This moment requires clarity,” wrote Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the state-controlled oil giant ADNOC. “Let’s be clear: the Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled.”
Vance, in his remarks in Hungary, vowed the war would resume unless Tehran followed through on its promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, where around 110 ships traveled daily before the war broke out. “The president is not going to abide by our terms if the Iranians are not abiding by their terms,” he said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, hailing the two-week ceasefire as a “victory” for the U.S., said it was “completely unacceptable” if the Strait of Hormuz was indeed largely closed, though she added that the president was privately assured it would be open.
“We have seen an uptick of traffic in the strait today, and I will reiterate the president’s expectation and demand that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened immediately, quickly and safely,” Leavitt told reporters during a briefing. “That is his expectation. It has been relayed to him privately that that is what’s taking place, and these reports publicly are false.”
Mahdi Mohammadi, an adviser to the speaker of Iran’s parliament, suggested in a post on X that Israel’s continued wave of strikes in Lebanon threatened to derail the talks altogether. “Without fully restraining America’s rabid dog in Lebanon, there will be no ceasefire or negotiations, and the missiles are ready to launch,” Mohammadi said.
The exact nature of the scheduled diplomatic talks in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad were still coming into focus Thursday. Vance will be joined by Steve Witkoff, the White House’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The makeup of the Iranian delegation was not immediately known.
Vance had been in touch with intermediaries from Pakistan about a potential deal in the last two weeks, leading to a flurry of diplomatic activity while he was overseas in Hungary on Monday and Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
Trump directed him to communicate a version of the message he had made publicly: The U.S. is open to a possible ceasefire, but only if certain U.S. demands are met, the source said.
Vance also repeatedly communicated a “stern message” that Trump was growing increasingly impatient and that there would be more pressure on Iranian infrastructure until Tehran made a deal, telling the intermediaries that Trump was going to make “crystal clear” that he was prepared to hit targets not yet struck by the U.S.
Iran’s envoy to Pakistan, for his part, said in a post on X that the regime’s delegation would arrive in Pakistan Thursday night — before deleting the post without explanation.
Ambassador Reza Amiri Moghadam said that “despite skepticism of Iranian public opinion due to repeated ceasefire violations by the Iranian regime,” the group would travel to Islamabad on the invitation of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
He did not provide further comment after deleting the post less than an hour later.
Pakistani authorities have ramped up security measures in Islamabad, according to The Associated Press, deploying hundreds of additional police and paramilitary forces. (NBC News has not independently verified that report.)
The 10-point peace plan outlined by Iranian state media calls for the Islamic Republic to keep control of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, and for the complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from bases across the region. Trump has suggested that is not a plan he believes could form the basis for a deal.
In an interview with NBC News, a former commander with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s powerful paramilitary group, conceded that many of the regime’s conditions were unlikely to be accepted by Washington but insisted Tehran was prepared to make concessions.
“Negotiation between Iran and the United States is like a trade — both sides have to give something,” Hussein Kanani Moghadam said in a video interview from Tehran.
