Vice President JD Vance said on Saturday evening that the U.S. delegation has decided to leave peace talks with Iran in Pakistan after the Islamist regime refused to agree to America’s terms.
Speaking alongside White House Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad, Vice President Vance said that after 21 hours of talks, it became clear that no agreement with Iran could be reached and that U.S. negotiators have therefore decided to walk away from the table.
“We have had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians, that’s the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran, much more than it is for the United States of America. So we go back to the United States of America without an agreement,” Vance said.
“We’ve made very clear what our red lines are, what things we’re willing to accommodate them on, and what things we’re not willing to accommodate them on, and we’ve made that as clear as we possibly could, and may have chosen not to accept our terms,” Vance said.
The Vice President refused to divulge all of the details of the talks, but said that Washington needs to see a “firm commitment” from Tehran that the regime will not seek to build a nuclear weapon or the tools that would allow it to quickly build a nuclear weapon.
“That is a core goal of the President of the United States and that is what we have tried to achieve in these negotiations. Their nuclear program, such that it is, the enrichment facilities that they had before, they have been destroyed,” he said.
“But the simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon, not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term? We haven’t seen that yet. We hope that we will.”
Vance told reporters, per NBC News, that the U.S. delegation left the talks with a “very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.”
The talks in Pakistan were quickly arranged earlier this week after Iran relented — reportedly under pressure from their allies in Communist China — and agreed to a ceasefire just hours before President Trump’s Tuesday evening deadline for further strikes on national infrastructure, including bridges and power facilities.
While President Trump said that any peace agreement would require Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment program, the maximalist “ten-point plan” put out by the Iranians maintained that Tehran had a right to enrich uranium.
Besides the fate of the Islamist regime’s nuclear program, the most pressing issue following the breakdown of talks will likely be the status of the Strait of Hormuz.
The critical waterway, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman through which around one-fifth of global oil supplies flow, has been effectively shut down since early last month after Iran claimed to have released mines into the Strait.
On Saturday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said that two U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers, the USS Frank E. Peterson and USS Michael Murphy, began preparations to start a minesweeping mission to clear the Strait.
Difficult under normal circumstances, the operation is reportedly further complicated because Iran reportedly lost track of where some of the mines were placed, either by failing to initially log their locations or by failing to secure them properly to prevent drift.
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