Diplomatic contacts center on a framework, not a detailed peace proposal
Vice President JD Vance sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and one of Iran’s most powerful hard-liners, seeking to revive U.S.-Iran peace negotiations, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter. Rezaei had previously been Iran’s longest-serving commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. One person said Vance sent the letter at President Donald Trump’s direction and that Trump was aware of the outreach.
The initiative was testing whether Tehran and Washington could find enough common ground to persuade Trump not to issue a final order for a short, intense attack on Iran in the coming weeks. Some U.S. officials said talking with Iranian hard-liners, who have amassed power in Tehran since the U.S. and Israel killed senior Iranian leaders at the war’s outset, might yield a better diplomatic result.
Publicly, Trump said last week that the administration was not talking with the Iranians and hinted at forthcoming strikes. “We’re not negotiating with them, we are going to have something one way or another, it’ll happen soon,” he said.
Vance’s letter and subsequent discussions between U.S. and Iranian officials did not include specific terms for a peace proposal, according to a person familiar with the matter. Instead, the discussions focused on a possible framework for negotiations. Rezaei said last week that Iran would not negotiate with Washington until specific core demands were met.
Vance’s spokesman declined to discuss the talks, and the White House referred the comment to the vice president’s team. A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said he had no information on the outreach, while Rezaei and the Supreme National Security Council could not be reached for comment. On social media, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, “While our Brave Armed Forces are fully prepared to defend the Homeland, Iran continues to give diplomacy a chance to succeed.”
Vance had openly supported the Iran war but privately expressed reservations about prolonging it. Before Trump launched “Operation Epic Fury” in February, Vance argued for more robust diplomacy. Trump later selected Vance as the lead negotiator, and Vance flew abroad twice to meet with Iranian counterparts in search of a final agreement to end the conflict.
A “memorandum of understanding” struck in June collapsed two weeks after its signing amid conflicting interpretations of how to unlock shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The outreach came as Republicans were preparing to lose seats in the House and Senate, potentially ceding control of one or both chambers. Voters cited the Iran conflict and rising fuel costs as causes of frustration with Trump and other Republicans. Vance is the early lead contender for the Republican presidential nomination ahead of the 2028 contest.
Trump has made dismantling Iran’s nuclear program a national-security priority of his second term, alternating between seeking a diplomatic settlement and using military force against Iran. On-again, off-again negotiations through mediators Qatar and Pakistan have so far failed to break the diplomatic deadlock. The United States insists on upfront nuclear concessions by Iran, while Tehran demands immediate economic relief.
The United States has maintained an economic blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz as oil exports flow through the contested waterway, though the blockade has not been enough to alleviate high energy prices.
Without a clear diplomatic path forward, Trump said during campaign stops in recent days that he expected to return to war with Iran and that the conflict would end only when he wanted it to. “They’ve wanted to make a deal, but they like tapping it along. Maybe they’re waiting for the election or something—but that’s not gonna help them,” Trump told reporters Tuesday night.
Rezaei’s role as a key interlocutor could sideline other Iranian figures, including Araghchi or Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of parliament. The Wall Street Journal described Rezaei, who led the Revolutionary Guard through Iran’s 1980s war with Iraq, as an influential yet hawkish voice amid looming U.S. threats.
Earlier this month, Rezaei said Tehran could target the United Arab Emirates, which has largely escaped being attacked since late spring, as well as data centers and internet cables across the region. On Sunday, Rezaei took the rare step of meeting with security chiefs from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey in Tehran as all sides sought de-escalation. Most previous visits involved diplomats instead.
The reported outreach remained preliminary and unconfirmed publicly. Its aim was to test whether Washington and Tehran could find enough common ground to persuade Trump not to order a renewed attack; no detailed peace proposal had been included in the letter or follow-up discussions.