The US and the Iranian delegations departed Pakistan on Sunday, soon after the US Vice President JD Vance said that talks with Iran had failed to reach an agreement.
The US vice president’s departure came almost an hour after he addressed a press conference at the site of the trilateral ‘Islamabad talks’, mediated by Pakistan, which culminated almost 21 hours after they began on Saturday afternoon.
Hours after Vance’s departure, the Iranian state media reported that Iran’s delegation had left Islamabad as well.
“We have been at it now for 21 hours, and we have had a number of substantive discussions, that’s the good news,” said Vance at the press conference. “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement,” he added.
“We have made very clear what our red lines are, what things we are willing to accommodate them on and what things we are not willing to accommodate them on,” said the US vice president, adding that the Iranian delegation had “chosen not to accept our terms.”
Vance began the press conference by appreciating Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, saying that they were “incredible hosts”.
He also clarified that “whatever shortcomings were in the negotiations were not because of Pakistanis, who did an amazing job and really tried to help us and the Iranians bridge the gap and get to a deal”.
When the US vice president was asked to elaborate on what had the Iranians rejected, he began by saying: “I won’t go into all the details because I don’t want to negotiate in public after we have negotiated for 21 hours in private. But the simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek nuclear weapons and that they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon.”
