Why US-Iran Peace Talks Collapsed After 21 Hours Of Negotiations In Islamabad

Islamabad: The US-Iran peace talks mediated by Pakistan remained inconclusive after 21 hours of negotiations on Saturday (April 11). US Vice President JD Vance, leading the Washington delegation, said it is “bad news for Iran” and that his team is leaving after putting forward a “final and best offer”. Vance refused to go into details and negotiate in public after 21 hours of private talks, but he did mention that the core dispute was on nuclear weapons.

“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,” Vance said, adding that it is the “core goal of the President (Donald Trump)”, and that is what they have tried to achieve through negotiations.

“Their nuclear programs such as it is, the enrichment facilities that they had before, they’ve been destroyed,” Trump’s veep added. Vance posed a rhetorical question asking if Iranians have a will to not develop a nuclear weapon in the long run and gave a simple ‘no’ response.

“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,” Vance said.

Iran insists it is not pursuing an atomic bomb, and the US and Israel bombed sensitive Iranian sites both in the war launched on February 28 as well as last year.

Responding to a reporter’s question on if Iranian frozen assets were discussed during the day-long talks, Vance said that and a lot more issues were discussed but “we just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms.”

According to a report by Press TV, Iran’s news network, various issues, including the Strait of Hormuz, have been among the points of contention. “Quite Flexible, Quite Accommodating” Vance said the US delegation was “quite flexible, accommodating” and that they came in “good faith”, as asked by Trump to make best effort to get a deal. “We did that,” he said. Iran Calls Out US’ “Unreasonable Demands” Iran blamed the US’ “unreasonable demands” for the standoff in the Islamabad talks aimed at ending war in the Middle East, Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said on Sunday.  “The Iranian delegation negotiated continuously and intensively for 21 hours in order to protect the national interests of the Iranian people; despite various initiatives from the Iranian delegation, the unreasonable demands of the American side prevented the progress of the negotiations. Thus the negotiations ended,” IRIB said on Telegram.

US President Donald Trump was asked about a backup plan in case peace talks with Iran collapse or Tehran refuses to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The US President made it clear that there is no plan B. “You don’t need a backup plan. Their military is defeated. We have integrated everything. They have very few missiles. They have very few manufacturing capabilities. We have hit them very hard. Our military is amazing; the job they have done,” the US president told reporters on Friday morning, ahead of the talks.