US President Donald Trump wants to see a “unified” response from Iran’s leadership to US proposals to end hostilities, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday.
Leavitt told reporters that Trump had not set a deadline for an end to the ceasefire extension he announced on Tuesday, and indicated that the talks were focused on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Axios, quoting a US official, reported that Washington was giving the fragmented Iranian leadership a window of three to five days to “get their shit together” and respond to a proposed deal and return to negotiations, or risk the collapse of the current ceasefire.
An official told Axios that the window of time was meant to give the Iranians time to come back with a unified response.
“We saw that there is an absolute fracture inside Iran between the negotiators and the military — with neither side having access to the supreme leader [Mojtaba Khamenei], who is not responsive,” the official said.
Israel’s Kan and Ynet outlets offered a similar timeframe, saying the Israeli understanding was that Tehran was being given until Sunday to offer a coherent position.
Leavitt refuted the reports, saying “The president has not set a firm deadline to receive an Iranian proposal, unlike some of the reporting we’ve seen today.”
In extending the ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday, Trump offered “a bit of flexibility” to a regime suffering from “a lot of internal division” as a result of the war, Leavitt said.
“This is a battle between the pragmatists and the hardliners in Iran right now, and the president wants a unified response,” she added.
In the meantime, “Operation Economic Fury” will continue, Leavitt said, offering a new term for the sanctions and blockade measures that Washington has taken against Iran.
In the meantime, Iran has adopted a defiant posture and has not committed to resuming negotiations. On Wednesday, it fired on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and said it had seized two.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said an alleged US breach of commitments, its blockade of Iranian ports and its threats were the main obstacles to “genuine negotiations.”
“[The] world sees your endless hypocritical rhetoric and contradiction between claims and actions,” he said.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf also decried the blockade and asserted that the US and Israel “did not achieve their goals through military aggression, and they will not achieve them through bullying.”
Earlier in the day, Trump claimed that Iran was “collapsing financially” over the closure of the strait.
Talks focused on nuclear file
Leavitt indicated that talks with Iran were focused on the nuclear file.
Fox News asked Leavitt whether humanitarian issues would also be part of the talks.
“Humanitarian issues are of a great concern to this president, but with respect to the negotiations that are ongoing, he has made his red lines very clear: Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb to threaten the United States and our allies, and they must turn over the enriched uranium that’s in their possession,” Leavitt said.
“While it is very far into the ground thanks to the success of Operation Midnight Hammer,” she said, referring to the June 2025 US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites, “it’s important to the president that they hand that enriched uranium over.”
Iran has indicated willingness to negotiate over the issue, but has reportedly offered to down-blend the highly enriched uranium rather than have it transferred out of the country.
Leavitt notably made no mention of Iran’s missile program and support for proxies, which Israel has insisted must also be part of any deal reached with Tehran.
Delayed negotiations
Earlier this week, there were successive reports that US Vice President JD Vance, who is leading the American negotiating team, was headed to Islamabad, which hosted a round of marathon US-Iranian talks earlier this month. But Iran never committed to showing up, so Vance didn’t travel.
The Axios report said the state of limbo has frustrated Vance, who had his bags packed. His plane, Air Force Two, was reportedly ready to fly and waiting for hours on the tarmac at the Washington-area Joint Base Andrews.
On Wednesday, the New York Post reported that a fresh round of negotiations between the US and Iran could take place in Pakistan as soon as Friday. The report cited Trump and unnamed Pakistani sources.
According to the Post, the sources informed the outlet that following “positive mediation efforts with Tehran,” both sides could return to the negotiating table within the next “36 to 72 hours.”
Trump, contacted by the Post for comment, replied that “it’s possible” that the sides could gather in Islamabad within that time frame.
An unnamed source close to Trump told Axios that he seems to want to end the war.
“It certainly looks like Trump doesn’t want to use military force anymore and has made a decision to end the war,” the source said.
The outlet, citing American figures close to Trump, said the president appeared to believe the US had gotten all it could from military action and seemed determined to try every other avenue before resorting to force again.
Israel, which Pakistan does not recognize, is not a party to the negotiations and has remained vague about the timeline, Kan reported. The report said Trump is not coordinating his steps with Jerusalem.
“We’ve only been staying updated on Trump’s moves recently from the media and his social network,” an Israeli official told the outlet.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Wednesday that the Islamic Republic appreciates Pakistan’s efforts to end the war while “taking the necessary measures to safeguard Iran’s national interests and security.”
But in comments reported by state television, he did not commit to a new round of talks.
“Diplomacy is a tool for securing national interests and security, and whenever we reach the conclusion that the necessary and reasonable conditions exist to use this tool to achieve national interests and to consolidate the achievements of the Iranian nation in thwarting the enemies’ malicious objectives, we will take action,” he said.
Trump claims women’s executions averted
Trump on Wednesday thanked Iran for purportedly scrapping the executions of eight female citizens at his request.
He had claimed on Tuesday that Iran was planning to hang eight women, citing an unverified post by a pro-Israel activist. A rights group later said that at least two of the eight had already been released when Trump issued the plea to Iran’s leadership.
“Very good news! I have just been informed that the eight women protestors who were going to be executed tonight in Iran will no longer be killed,” Trump wrote on social media. “Four will be released immediately, and four will be sentenced to one month in prison.”
“I very much appreciate that Iran, and its leaders respected my request, as President of the United States, and terminated the planned execution,” Trump added.
Iran’s judiciary described the claim as “false news.”
“Despite the claim from last night being exposed as a lie, Trump, just minutes ago in another post, claimed that the death sentences of eight protesting women who were supposed to be executed tonight in Iran have been cancelled, and thanked Iran!” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website posted on X.
“Trump’s empty hand in the field has led him to fabricate achievements from false news,” it said.
