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The Trump administration plans to request the release of Americans detained in Iran during upcoming negotiations in Pakistan aimed at ending the U.S.-Israeli war, The Washington Post reported, citing people briefed on the plans.
The timing and intensity of that request may depend on how difficult the talks prove to be.
People familiar with the planning said it was not immediately clear how strongly administration officials would push the issue when peace talks open this weekend in Pakistan.
Some expressed concern that if the negotiations become difficult, the request could be delayed.
The ceasefire declared earlier this week is already under heavy strain.
People briefed on the plans said the Trump administration intends to seek the release of Americans detained in Iran as part of the negotiations.
Those people, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said the request has not previously been reported.
According to advocates for the detainees, at least six Americans are believed to be in Iranian custody.
They said they are hopeful the detainees could be released as a goodwill gesture by Tehran, even though they believe the U.S. citizens were likely taken to be used as leverage in future talks with Washington.
Kieran Ramsey of Global Reach, a nonprofit focused on securing the release of American hostages and wrongful detainees, said Iran's release of U.S. citizens would be a simple and no-loss way to create an off-ramp from the current hostilities.
The White House, which is coordinating the peace talks with Tehran, declined to comment on the reported plans.
Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the discussions are ongoing and that the United States will not negotiate through the press.
In a separate statement condemning what it called Tehran's long and shameful history of unjustly detaining U.S. nationals and other foreign citizens, the U.S. State Department called on Iran to immediately release all Americans held there.
The department said it had nothing further to share out of respect for their safety and security.
Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.
Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have traveled to Islamabad for negotiations, which are expected to begin today.
The talks are aimed at ending the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Experts said the U.S. team faces a difficult task in trying to find common ground with Iranian officials on major unresolved issues, including Tehran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its remaining stockpile of enriched uranium.
The closure of the strait has choked the flow of Middle Eastern oil, causing global energy prices to rise, including gas prices in the United States.
The uranium issue is central to one of Trump's key demands, that Iran never obtain a nuclear bomb.
Throughout both of his terms in office, Trump has pushed foreign governments to release U.S. citizens he said were being held as hostages and has secured the release of dozens.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as White House national security adviser, designated Iran a state sponsor of wrongful detention on Feb. 27.
The designation was created by the Trump administration and came one day before U.S. and Israeli forces began their joint military campaign.
Advocates for the detained Americans said their hopes have risen after Iran recently allowed two French citizens convicted on espionage charges to leave the country.
The French government had said the charges were false and politically motivated.
Both departed on Tuesday after mediation by Oman and the release of an Iranian woman from house arrest in France.
Some of the Americans held by Iran have either been imprisoned or placed under exit bans.
Advocates and relatives fear their situation has grown more dangerous over the past five weeks of war, with concerns that the instability in the country could lead to them being harmed.
Two of the detained U.S. citizens, Kamran Hekmati, 61, and Reza Valizadeh, 49, were being held in Evin Prison in Tehran, a prison complex that holds thousands of inmates, including many jailed on political charges.
Evin was damaged in a deadly Israeli airstrike last year during a 12-day war between Israel and Iran, according to an investigation by The Washington Post.
Lawyers and advocates for detainees in Evin and other Iranian prisons said an internet blackout has made it more difficult to contact the detained Americans.
Iran has a long history of taking hostages to use as political leverage, often on false charges.
Hekmati, a Jewish Iranian American who worked in New York as a jeweler, was detained last year on charges that he had visited Israel within the past 10 years.
He disputed the allegation, saying he had visited Israel 13 years before his arrest.
Valizadeh, a dual national who left Iran in 2009 and later worked as a reporter for U.S. government-funded Radio Farda, was arrested after returning to Iran in 2024 to visit his elderly parents.
He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of collaboration with a hostile government, an accusation rights groups say is often used against dual nationals who criticize the Iranian government.
The Trump administration has designated both men as wrongfully detained, a formal classification meaning the U.S. government considers them hostages held for political purposes.
Hekmati received that designation from Rubio in March during the current conflict.
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