Washington, D.C.: Vance Writes to Iranian Hard-Liner Rezaei to Test Peace Talks as Trump Weighs New Strikes

Vice President JD Vance has sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in a bid to restart peace talks between Washington and Tehran, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday evening, citing US officials and people familiar with the matter.

President Donald Trump confirmed the outreach when reporters asked him about the Journal report on Wednesday evening. "He asked me what I thought and I said if you want to do that that's OK," Trump said. He spoke before traveling to a campaign rally in Ohio, six days before the November 3 midterm elections.

What the letter is testing

According to the Journal, the letter tests whether Washington and Tehran can find enough common ground to agree on a framework for negotiations. The contacts that followed the letter have not dealt with the specific terms of a peace deal. One person familiar with the matter told the Journal the letter was sent at Trump's direction, and that Vance is testing whether talks could persuade Trump not to give a final order for a short, intense attack on Iran in the coming weeks.

Some US officials told the Journal that dealing directly with hard-liners could produce a better result, because hard-liners have gained power in Tehran since the United States and Israel killed senior Iranian leaders at the start of the war.

Trump gives a narrower account

Asked whether he had directed Vance to start peace negotiations with Iran, Trump said no. He said the contact was about getting medical supplies to people in Iran who are not well. "They need help with medical supplies and various things," he said.

That account sits at odds with the Journal's sourcing on who ordered the letter. It also follows Trump's own words last week, when he said the administration was not talking to Iran. "We're not negotiating with them, we are going to have something one way or another, it'll happen soon," he said then. Trump has threatened to resume bombing Iran after the November 3 elections.

Tehran's position

Rezaei said last week that Iran would not negotiate with Washington until its core demands were met, according to the Journal. On Sunday he met in Tehran with a delegation from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Iran is also weighing a separate track. The Media Line reported that Iran is examining a Qatari-mediated proposal, presented to Tehran on Sunday, that sets out a seven-day process in which both sides take confidence-building steps each day while several countries guarantee compliance. Tehran is expected to respond by the end of the week, an official briefed on the negotiations said.

Rezaei is not one of the officials who handled the last round of talks. Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and its foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, were Tehran's lead negotiators earlier this year and met Vance in Islamabad in April, alongside special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, in a session that ran 21 hours. Rezaei has taken a harder public line: this month he threatened to expand Iranian attacks on targets in neighboring Arab countries, including data centers and internet cables.