The United States and Iran have failed to reach a deal after high-stakes talks in the Pakistani capital with US Vice President JD Vance saying Tehran has refused to accept Washington’s terms after 21 hours of negotiations in Islamabad.
“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, the head of the US delegation, told reporters on Sunday, shortly before he left Islamabad after the highest-level meeting between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
He said Iran chose “not to accept our terms” at the talks, which began on Saturday, adding that the US needs to see a “fundamental commitment” from Tehran not to develop nuclear weapons.
“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,” Vance said during a ceasefire in the six-week US-Israeli war on Iran.
Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Washington, DC, said the fact that President Donald Trump sent Vance showed the US was taking these talks seriously.
“The fact that Vance left doesn’t necessarily mean that the talks are over,” he said, adding that the main sticking points seem to be the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran continues to essentially control, and the gaps in the nuclear issue.
“The US has been negotiating with Iran over time. Those talks can continue remotely, and leaving those talks may simply be a hard stance,” the Al Jazeera correspondent said.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday that no one had expected the talks with the US to reach an agreement in one day.
Credit: aljazeera.com
