US Vice President JD Vance will travel to Pakistan on Tuesday for talks on Iran, according to US media.
Vance is expected to depart for Islamabad on Tuesday morning for talks with Iran over a potential deal to end the war, US news site Axios reported late on Monday, quoting three American sources.
The White House spent Monday waiting for a signal from Tehran that it would send its negotiating team to Islamabad, according to the report.
Mediators have asked Iranian officials to attend the talks, urging them to send a delegation.
Tehran has not announced a decision to send a delegation to Islamabad yet.
However, Pakistani sources told the New York Post that Tehran was "willing for a second round," but that "no decision has been taken about" it.
Centre of gravity
Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and other senior figures are likely to be present at the talks, but it is Vance who occupies the centre of gravity, according to The New York Times.
The US vice president is tasked with navigating an exit from a war that has grown increasingly unpopular in the US and continues to strain the global economy and its intricate energy supply chains.
That diplomatic burden comes as efforts to reopen channels with Tehran have already begun, though with limited success.
Pakistan hosted the first direct high-level US-Iran engagement on April 11-12, the first high-level meeting since the two countries severed diplomatic ties in 1979, but those talks ended without a breakthrough.
Islamabad was placed under a heightened security lockdown on Sunday night, with authorities confirming the deployment of additional police personnel across the city.
