US Vice President JD Vance announced in Islamabad on Sunday that negotiations with Iran had ended after 21 hours without reaching an agreement. The American delegation returns to the USA. TASR informs about it based on the report of the AP agency.
- Vice President JD Vance announced the failure of negotiations with Iran in Islamabad.
- According to him, the US presented clear conditions to Iran, which the Iranian side refused to accept.
- A key U.S. condition is that Iran permanently renounce its nuclear weapons.
- The US says it has shown considerable flexibility in the negotiations.
Vance: Iran has decided not to accept our terms
He refused to specify the details of the negotiations with Iran. However, he emphasized that the key issue for them is Iran’s nuclear program.
“We’ve had some substantial discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we didn’t reach an agreement. I think that’s worse news for Iran than it is for the United States,” Vance said.
He informed that the United States has clearly established in the negotiations what it is willing to accommodate to Iran and what it insists on. “They chose not to accept our terms,” Vance said.
Nuclear weapons are at the heart of the dispute
At the same time, he indicated that he was still giving Iran time to consider an offer from the United States, which announced on Tuesday that it would suspend attacks on Iran for two weeks to make room for peace talks.
“We’re leaving here with a very simple proposition: This is an approach that represents our last offer and the best we can put forward. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” Vance said during a brief statement to the media after which he answered only a few questions.
Vance said nuclear weapons are at the heart of the dispute. He clarified that one of the conditions of the United States is that Iran agrees to give up its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. According to Vance, the United States needs a “firm commitment” from Iran on this matter. He added that Tehran refused to accept him at this point in the negotiations.
The question of the development of nuclear weapons
“The simple question is: are we seeing a fundamental commitment from the Iranians not to develop nuclear weapons — not just now, not two years from now, but long term? We haven’t seen that yet. We hope we can,” Vance said.
Iran has insisted for years that it is not trying to build an atomic bomb. During the war, which began on February 28, the United States and Israel also bombed nuclear facilities on Iranian soil. Such targeted attacks on Iran have also occurred in the past.
The US vice president added that during the negotiations he was in regular contact with US President Donald Trump and exchanged messages with Admiral Bradley Cooper, who heads the US Regional Command (CENTCOM), US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Vance insists the US has shown flexibility
The talks, brokered by Pakistan, began on Saturday and were aimed at reaching a permanent settlement to the six-week conflict that began on February 28 with US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
According to Vance, the United States “has shown a great degree of flexibility in these negotiations. He emphasized that even Trump, who said on Saturday that he does not care if he succeeds in concluding a deal with Iran, took a conciliatory position during the negotiations.
“I think we’ve shown a great deal of flexibility. We’ve been very accommodating. The president has told us, ‘You have to come in good faith and do your best to reach an agreement.’ That’s exactly what we did and, unfortunately, we weren’t able to move things forward,” Vance said.
