(AFP) – Iran and the United States failed to reach an agreement to end the war in the Middle East, US Vice President JD Vance said Sunday after marathon talks in Islamabad, adding that he was leaving after giving Tehran the “final and best offer”. Vance stated that Washington was seeking a “fundamental commitment” from Iran that it would not develop a nuclear weapon, but noted that “we haven’t seen that” after holding the highest-level meeting between the two sides since the 1979 Islamic revolution. However, he signalled that he was still giving Iran time to consider the offer from the United States, which on Tuesday said it would pause attacks with Israel for two weeks pending negotiations.
Pakistan, which hosted the talks and whose leadership had ushered the rival sides to the table, said it would keep facilitating dialogue and urged both countries to continue respecting the temporary truce. Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB reported that negotiations stalled over “unreasonable demands of the American side”, though the country’s foreign ministry spokesman later noted that “no one” could have expected that after 40 days of war, they would reach an agreement within one session. The United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, sparking retaliation from Tehran that has plunged the Middle East into conflict and the global economy into tumult. Iran and the US had entered the talks mediated by Pakistan with maximalist positions, with Washington piling pressure by saying it had sent minesweeping ships through the vital Strait of Hormuz maritime route.
Signs of strain in the negotiations appeared when Iranian media accused the United States of making “excessive demands” over the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil transited before its effective closure by Iran during the war. US President Donald Trump had also insisted several hours into the talks on Saturday that the United States had already triumphed on the battlefield by killing Iranian leaders and destroying key military infrastructure. “Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me. The reason is because we’ve won,” Trump said. After 21 hours of talks in the Pakistani capital, Vance told reporters that no deal could yet be struck. “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,” Vance said, before departing for a nearby airport and flying out of Pakistan.
Suggesting efforts to keep the sides talking would continue, Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his government would “continue to play its role to facilitate engagement and dialogue between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America in the days to come”. “It is imperative that the parties continue to uphold their commitment to ceasefire,” he added. The high-stakes meeting had unfolded in Islamabad with intense mistrust by both sides. Iran was in the middle of negotiations on its nuclear programme in February with Trump’s real-estate friend Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner when the United States and Israel launched their attack. The first salvos of the war killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Both Kushner and Witkoff were part of Vance’s team in Pakistan. The 70-strong Iranian delegation was led by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the powerful speaker of parliament, and included Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Iranian demands for any agreement to end the war include unfreezing sanctioned Iranian assets and ending Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which Vance has said would not be up for discussion in Islamabad. The opening of the Strait of Hormuz has also presented a key friction point. Iran, throughout the war, exercised its global economic leverage by asserting control of the important maritime route, sending oil prices soaring and piling political pressure on Trump as Americans complained of rising costs at the pump. The US military said Saturday that two Navy warships transited through the strait to begin clearing it of mines and ensure it is a “safe pathway” for tankers. The Iranian military denied that any American warships had entered the waterway and threatened to respond if they do so. The Revolutionary Guards’ Naval Command said Iranian promises of safe passage during a two-week ceasefire applied only to “civilian vessels under specific conditions”.
The United States is heavily impacted by soaring oil prices on global markets but imports less directly from the Gulf than many of its European allies — which Trump has berated for not joining a war that they were not consulted about beforehand. “We’ll open up the strait even though we don’t use it, because we have a lot of other countries in the world that do use it that are either afraid or weak or cheap,” Trump said.
Ghalibaf, speaking shortly after landing in Pakistan, made clear that Iran remained highly suspicious of the United States. “Our experience in negotiating with the Americans has always been met with failure and broken promises,” Ghalibaf said. Vance stated before leaving for Pakistan that if Iran was willing, the United States would “negotiate in good faith” but would not be receptive “if they’re going to try to play us”. A major complicating factor has been Israel’s assertion that the ceasefire does not affect Lebanon, where the Israeli military has launched massive strikes and a ground invasion in response to fire from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia Muslim movement. Lebanese authorities said Israeli strikes on the country’s south on Saturday killed 18 people, bringing the death toll from Israel’s operations since the war broke out past 2,000.
Israel and Lebanon will hold their own talks next week in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that he wanted a peace deal with Lebanon that “will last for generations”. But Israel has ruled out a ceasefire with Hezbollah, signalling it will instead seek to pressure the historically weak central government in Beirut.
burs/hmn/ceg/axn – AFP teams in Islamabad, Tehran and Washington
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