US President Donald Trump is expected to put his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, in charge of the Iran file, in a sign that the administration will try diplomacy with the Islamic Republic, according to statements from several sources in the US capital.

Witkoff, who has pressed Israel to strike a ceasefire in Gaza, will reportedly be tasked with continuing diplomacy with Iran as part of a broader campaign to "end wars" in the Middle East.

During the transition, Trump officials told the media that they planned to return to the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran that Trump implemented in his first term, which included withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, imposing crippling sanctions, and assassinating Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

But in a sign that Trump may be taking a different approach, he just fired Brian Hook, an Iran hawk who led the maximum pressure campaign in his previous administration. He was in charge of the file in Trump’s first term in the State Department, but he will now have no role in the administration.

Trump administration officials have also said the new administration will consider striking Iran's nuclear program to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon, but there is no evidence yet that Tehran is seeking a bomb, something CIA Director William Burns acknowledged in a recent interview.

The buzz around Iran’s nuclear program has focused on the enrichment of some uranium to 60% purity, which is still short of the 90% needed for weapons. Iran took the 60% enrichment step in response to a covert Israeli attack on its Natanz nuclear facility in 2021.

It is noteworthy that Iran is also a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, unlike Israel, which has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has a secret nuclear stockpile that the United States has not officially acknowledged.

The 2015 nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from in 2018 had capped Iran’s enrichment of uranium at 3.67% in exchange for sanctions relief. Axios reported Thursday that Iran made clear to European diplomats in a recent meeting that it wants to resume negotiations on a new nuclear deal that differs from the 2015 accord. The pursuit of such a deal is likely to face significant resistance from many of the new administration’s Iran hawks and Republicans in Congress, who are already complaining about Witkoff, saying he is already increasing the pressure on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.