The U.S.-Iran talks have broken down in the first round of negotiations, with Vice President JD Vance confirming the “bad news” that “we have not reached an agreement.”
“Vice-President JD Vance has said that the US and Iran failed to reach an agreement following lengthy peace talks in Pakistan,” the BBC reported Sunday night. “The delegations met in Islamabad, Pakistan during a temporary ceasefire.”
Iran’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons program was the main sticking point, Vance confirmed in his remarks before leaving Pakistan. “Vance said the US “could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms”. Halting Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been a “core goal” that wasn’t reached,” the broadcaster added.
Reuters reports:
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that his negotiating team was leaving Pakistan after not reaching a deal with Iran following 21 hours of negotiations, jeopardizing a fragile two-week ceasefire.”The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” Vance told reporters after the talks ended. “So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are.”Vance cited shortcomings in the talks and said Iran had chosen not to accept American terms, including to not build nuclear weapons. A short time later, Vance waved goodbye from the top of the stairs as he boarded Air Force Two in Islamabad.”We need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said (…) that negotiations had ended. Before Vance spoke, Iran’s government in a post on X had said negotiations would continue and technical experts from both sides would exchange documents.The talks in Islamabad were the first direct U.S.-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. (…)Vance’s delegation included special envoy Steve Witkoff and PresidentDonald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Vance said he talked with Trump a half a dozen to a dozen times during the talks.Iran’s team included Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
The breakdown of talks leaves the fate of the ceasefire in jeopardy. President Donald Trump on Tuesday agreed to a two-week truce, urging Iran to ‘make a deal.’ The U.S. wants Iran to abandon its rogue nuclear weapons program and clear the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest oil shipping lanes.
Ahead of the talks, President Trump warned Tehran that if “we don’t have a deal,” the U.S. was prepared to resume the military operation that began 6 weeks ago. “We’re going to find out in about 24 hours. We’re going to know soon,” he told the New York Post on Sunday. “We have a reset going. We’re loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made — even better than what we did previously, and we blew them apart.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Navy began clearing Iranian mines in the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could take away Iran’s main bargaining chip. The CBS News reported:
Two U.S. Navy destroyers had transited the Strait of Hormuz to begin mine-clearing operations in the vital waterway, U.S. Central Command said Saturday.The destroyers crossed through the Strait and operated in the Arabian Gulf, CENTCOM said on social media. Additional U.S. forces, including underwater drones, will “join the clearance effort in the coming days,” CENTCOM said.
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