Islamabad, Apr 13:
The US and Iran failed to reach a peace deal at their historic 21-hour talks in Pakistan, leaving the fate of a tenuous two-week ceasefire in doubt, with both sides attempting to hold each other responsible for the collapse of the negotiations.
Vice President JD Vance, who led the US delegation at the negotiations in Islamabad, said the Iranian side did not accept Washington’s terms for ending the war even as the US presented its “final and best offer”. He indicated that Tehran’s reluctance to abandon its nuclear programme was one of the key sticking points.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of the Iranian team, said it is for the US to decide whether it can “earn our trust or not”.
The Iranian foreign ministry, without elaborating, said the US side resorted to “excessive” and “illegal demands”
The failure to reach an agreement has dimmed the prospect of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to stabilise the global energy market. It is unclear whether the US will resume military operations against Iran.
“We have been at it now for 21 hours. We’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians, that’s the good news,” Vance said at a press conference before departing from the Pakistani capital.
“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.”
“But the simple fact is that 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,” he said.
To a question on Iran’s nuclear programme, Vance said the US President Donald Trump’s “core goal” is to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons.
“That is the core goal of the President of the United States. And that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations,” he added.
The US Vice President said the American side presented its “final and best offer” to the Iranian side but it did not accept it.
“We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians would accept our terms,” he said.
“We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that this is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” Vance said.
The Iranian media reported the talks collapsed after negotiators failed to bridge gaps regarding Iran’s nuclear program, control over the Strait of Hormuz, and release of frozen Iranian assets.
In a social media post, Ghalibaf said the Iranian side raised “forward-looking initiatives,” but the opposing side “ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations.”
“We consider every mirror to be another method of authority diplomacy, alongside military struggle, for upholding the rights of the Iranian nation, and we will not for a moment cease our efforts to consolidate the achievements of the forty days of Iran’s national defence,” he said.
The Iranian foreign ministry said the success of the “diplomatic process depends on the seriousness and goodwill of the other side, and refraining from excessive and illegal demands”.
Iran foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said issues like the transit through Strait of Hormuz created some hurdles in the talks.
“These talks happened in the aftermath of a 40-day war and in an ambiance of mistrust and skepticism,” Baqaei said, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.
“Naturally, we should have never expected to reach a deal in one session. We will continue to work to bring the two views of Americans and Iranians closer together,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said Islamabad will continue to facilitate Iran-US peace talks.
Pakistan has been and will continue to play its role to facilitate engagements and dialogue between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the US in the days to come, he said.
Dar also expressed gratitude to both sides for accepting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s proposal for a ceasefire and acknowledging Pakistan’s mediatory role.
US special envoy to West Asia Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner were also part of the US team.
The Pakistan-brokered negotiations began Saturday, four days after the two sides announced a six-day ceasefire.
It was the first direct, high-level engagement between Iran and the US since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Vance said the negotiating team was in touch with President Trump and other top US officials.