By Gram Slattery, Humeyra Pamuk, Steve Holland and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON, April 10 (Reuters) - When JD Vance arrives in Islamabad for talks on Saturday with Iranian officials, it will fulfill a wish for Tehran's remaining leaders, some of whom have quietly sought the U.S. vice president to take a lead role in negotiations to end the war, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

Iran views Vance as one of the most anti-war figures in President Donald Trump's inner circle, said one regional official and four people familiar with the talks.

President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran has "no cards" in upcoming talks with the United States -- apart from Tehran's effective stranglehold on the crucial Strait of Hormuz shipping channel.

"The Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways," Trump said on his Truth Social network.

"The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!"

By Laila Bassam and Maya Gebeily

BEIRUT, April 10 (Reuters) - Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun has called for historic direct talks with longtime foe Israel since war erupted a month ago - a month in which Israel's military has forced more than a million Lebanese to flee, levelled parts of Beirut and triggered sectarian friction.

Now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally answered the call to talk peace, Lebanon is in its weakest position to deliver it, experts said.

More than 100,000 Muslim worshippers performed Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in east Jerusalem, the holy site's Islamic authority reported, after it reopened the previous day following a truce agreed between the United States and Iran.

Jerusalem's Old City is home to major holy sites for all three Abrahamic religions, which had been shuttered since the start of the war sparked by the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28.

By Steven Scheer

JERUSALEM, April 10 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked to postpone giving testimony in his long-running corruption trial that was set to resume next week, citing the ongoing security situation in the region, Netanyahu's lawyer said in a court filing on Friday.

Netanyahu's trial was set to resume on Sunday, after Israel lifted a state of emergency imposed over its war with Iran following Wednesday's ceasefire announcement. The defence said it was prepared to continue hearing the testimony of a prosecution witness.

By Pesha Magid and Nidal al-Mughrabi

JERUSALEM/CAIRO, April 10 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's Board of Peace has received only a tiny fraction of the $17 billion pledged for Gaza, preventing the U.S. president from pushing ahead with his plan for the shattered Palestinian enclave's future, sources told Reuters.

Ten days before U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran plunged the region into war, Trump hosted a conference in Washington that saw Gulf Arab states pledge billions for the governance and reconstruction of Gaza after a two-year pulverisation by Israel.

By Marc Jones, Uditha Jayasinghe and Ariba Shahid

LONDON/COLOMBO/ISLAMABAD, April 10 (Reuters) - Sanoj Weeratunge thought this would finally be the year his tour firm put Sri Lanka's spate of crises behind it. Then the Iran war erupted 2,700 miles away, the government hiked fuel prices by 35% and business slumped almost a third.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted on Friday that NATO was "in America's interests", at the end of a three-day visit to the Gulf to discuss bolstering the "fragile" Middle East truce.

Starmer's comments followed US President Donald Trump's renewed attacks this week on the Western military alliance and his threats to withdraw from it, after a refusal by NATO allies to join the US-Israel war against Iran.

"It is in America's interests. It's in European interests," Starmer told UK broadcasters of the nearly 80-year-old security bloc.

LOS ANGELES, April 10 (Reuters) - Vice President JD Vance said on Friday he was looking forward to having positive negotiations with Iran as he left for talks in Pakistan with a warning to Tehran not to "play us."

"We're looking forward to the negotiation. I think it's going to be positive," Vance told reporters before leaving Washington.

WASHINGTON, April 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday that the United States is trying to have a stable relationship with China, but if Beijing is going to be involved with Iran in a way that goes against U.S. interests, that would complicate matters.

In an interview on CNBC, Greer said he expected President Donald Trump to have a good meeting next month with Chinese President Xi Jinping but not every challenge with China is resolved.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Doina Chiacu)