US Vice President JD Vance thanked the Pakistani prime minister and army chief, describing them as ‘incredible hosts.’
“Whatever shortcomings of the negotiation, it wasn’t because of the Pakistanis, who did an amazing job and really tried to help us and the Iranians bridge the gap and get to a deal. We’ve been at it now for 21 hours, and we’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news,” Vance said.
“The bad news is that we haven’t 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. So, we go back to the United States, having not come to an agreement. 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 made that as clear as we possibly could, and they have chosen not to accept our terms,” he said.
When asked about what the Iranians had rejected, the US vice president said he would not get into the details, but the US is seeking confirmation that Iran will not seek a nuclear weapon.
“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. 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 said.
“Again, their nuclear programme, such as it is, the enrichment facilities that they had before, they’ve been destroyed. 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.”
The US Vice President said the two sides discussed several issues.
“We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms. I think we were quite flexible; we were quite accommodating,” he said.
“The president told us, ‘You need to come here in good faith and make your best effort to get a deal.’ We did that, and unfortunately, we weren’t able to make any headway.”
He said the negotiating team was in contact with Trump throughout the talks.
“We were talking to the president consistently. I don’t know how many times we talked to him – a half dozen times, a dozen times – over the past 21 hours,” he said.
“So, look, we were constantly in communication with the team, because we were negotiating in good faith. And 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.”
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