Vice President JD Vance revealed that Iran has not accepted a deal after the first day of historic peace talks.
‘We’ve been at it now for 21 hours. We’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news,’ Vance told reporters at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan.
‘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.’
He added, ‘So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement.’
Negotiations appeared to end while Donald Trump attended a UFC match in Miami with his family and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Vance said he did not want to ‘negotiate in public,’ but explained that Iran would not commit to stopping its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
‘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,’ he said.
‘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 added, ‘That is the core goal of the president of the United States. And that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.’
The Vice President did not elaborate on what the next steps for the negotiations are and did not address concerns over the Strait of Hormuz.
‘We leave here with a very simple proposal: a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,’ Vance said.
He said he spoke with Trump ‘a half dozen times, a dozen times, over the past 21 hours’ and was in contact with other US leaders during the peace talks.
‘We were constantly in communication with the team because we were negotiating in good faith,’ Vance said.
Negotiations began in Pakistan’s capital city on Saturday, following Wednesday’s fragile truce between the two countries after six weeks of conflict.
The US delegation to the peace talks is being led by Vance, along with Steve Witkoff, the special envoy and Jared Kushner, who is Trump’s son-in-law.
The Iranian delegation is being led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.
While speaking to reports outside the White House on Saturday, Trump acknowledged the ‘very deep negotiations,’ but said that no matter what happens during the talks, the United States has already won.
‘Regardless what happens, we win. We’ve totally defeated that country. And so, let’s see what happens. Maybe they make a deal, maybe they don’t. From the standpoint of America, we win regardless,’ he said.
‘With all of that, let’s see what happens, but from my standpoint, I don’t care.’
The president then took a dig at NATO while saying his next step is to open up the Strait of Hormuz.
‘We defeated their leaders. Their leaders are all dead. Now all we do is we’ll open up the strait, even though we don’t use it. Because we have a lot of other countries in the world that do use it, that are either afraid or weak or cheap,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what it is, but we were not helped by NATO that I can tell you.’
