No agreement between U.S. and Iran after 21 hours of talks – U.S. Vice president JD Vance

The United States and Iran have failed to reach an agreement after 21 hours of discussions in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, with Vice President JD Vance saying Tehran refused to accept Washington’s terms.

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“The bad news is that we have not 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,” Vance, the head of the US delegation, told reporters shortly before he left Islamabad after the highest-level meeting between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

According to Al Jazeera, Vance’s departure does not necessarily mean negotiations have ended.

Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Washington, DC, said the fact that President Donald Trump sent Vance showed the US was taking these talks seriously.

“The fact that Vance left doesn’t necessarily mean that the talks are over,” he said, adding that the main sticking points seem to be the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran continues to control, and the gaps in the nuclear issue.

“The US has been negotiating with Iran over time; those talks can continue remotely, and leaving those talks may simply be a hard stance,” the Al Jazeera correspondent added.

Hendren said the US is demanding not just that Iran pledge that it will not develop nuclear weapons, but also that it will not even try to access those tools, adding that such gaps made the talks in the mid-2010s take years to negotiate.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday that no one had expected the talks with the US to reach an agreement in a single session.

“Naturally, from the beginning, we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session. No one had such an expectation,” ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

He said Tehran was “confident that contacts between us and Pakistan, as well as our other friends in the region, will continue”.

Ishaq Dar, foreign minister of Pakistan, called on both countries to uphold the ceasefire and continue efforts towards lasting peace.

“On behalf of Pakistan, I would like to express gratitude to the two sides for appreciating Pakistan’s efforts to achieve a ceasefire and its mediator role,” Dar said.

“We hope that the two sides continue with a positive spirit to achieve durable peace and prosperity for the entire region and beyond.”