Iran-U.S. peace talks in Pakistan ended without progress after 21 hours, with both sides blaming each other for the deadlock as ceasefire efforts remain uncertain.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Sunday said that 21 hours of talks with Iran in Pakistan yielded no progress.
“They [Iran] have chosen not to accept our terms. The President [Donald Trump] said we have to come in good faith and try to make a deal. Unfortunately, there was no headway,” Vance told reporters in Islamabad.
He said Washington had sought a clear commitment from Tehran not to pursue nuclear weapons, adding: “Their nuclear programme and the enrichment facilities they had before have been destroyed. But we do not see a commitment to not develop more nuclear weapons.”
His remarks came hours after Trump said the U.S. had prevailed regardless of the outcome of the talks. “We totally defeated that country. Maybe they make a deal, maybe they don’t. From the standpoint of America, I don’t care,” Trump said, claiming Iran had been defeated “militarily”.
Trump asserted that Iran’s military capabilities had been significantly degraded. “We defeated their navy, we defeated their air force, we defeated their anti-aircraft. We defeated their radar,” he said, adding that “their leaders are all dead.”
Iran, on the other hand, blamed “unreasonable demands” by the U.S. for the deadlock in talks.
“The Iranian delegation negotiated continuously and intensively for 21 hours in order to protect the national interests of the Iranian people,” Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB said on Telegram.
“Despite various initiatives from the Iranian delegation, the unreasonable demands of the American side prevented the progress of the negotiations. Thus the negotiations ended.”
The remarks came after Vance’s interaction with the reporters following the negotiations, where he said that the U.S. delegation was leaving Islamabad with its “final and best offer”.
“We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” Vance added.
The U.S. vice president also thanked Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, saying that “whatever shortcomings” arose in the talks “were not due to the Pakistanis, who did an amazing job”.