During U.S.-Iran talks in Lucerne in late June, Iranian negotiators sent Vice President JD Vance a private message through an intermediary, Drop Site reports.

The Iranians warned Vance that the continued presence of President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner would undermine the chances of turning the June 17 framework agreement into a long-term deal, a senior Iranian official said.

According to the Iranian official, in the private message Iran told Vance that the pair were more interested in using insider information about the talks to profit on financial markets than in reaching an agreement.

Iranian negotiators also expressed concern about repeated leaks from Kushner to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (A U.S. official told Axios that since the start of the talks, Witkoff and Kushner have been “speaking with Netanyahu and the head of the Mossad almost every day.”)

According to the official, several weeks before signing the memorandum of understanding, Iran submitted written documents to the intermediaries that it described as evidence that “people close to President Trump” had exploited the war with Iran and diplomatic developments to manipulate financial markets. “Even before the talks began in Islamabad [in April], we had already repeatedly sent Trump messages through the Pakistanis, warning them about [Witkoff’s] destructive role in previous negotiations,” the official said.

The outreach to Vance came after initial attempts to convey Tehran’s concerns about Witkoff and Kushner to the White House, given that messages passed through intermediaries are shared with the entire U.S. team, including Kushner, who is a private citizen and does not hold an official government position.

“We conveyed the data and assessments to Vance through an exclusive channel,” the senior Iranian official said.

According to him, Iranian negotiators told Vance that they believed Witkoff and Kushner were “abusing” the diplomatic process, “effectively undermining the overall atmosphere of the talks.”