After the face-to-face talks between the US and Iranian delegations in Pakistan stretched to Sunday, US Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the discussions had ended without an agreement in place. The high-stakes talks ended after 21 hours after the Iranians refused to accept the terms set by the United States determining that they couldn’t develop a nuclear weapon.
Having led the American side in the negotiations, Vance took his stand at a podium in front of American flags and spoke for one minute before responding to three questions from reporters. With special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, by his side, the US VP’s entire remarks lasted just more than three minutes walked away.
Read the full text of JD Vance’s remarks delivered from Pakistan:
JD Vance delivers remarks on ‘no deal’ with Iran in Pakistan
“Well, good morning everybody. Let me say a couple of notes of appreciation,” Vance began on Sunday morning in Islamabad (local time). “First of all. To the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Field Marshall Munir, who were both incredible hosts. Whatever shortcomings in the negotiations, it wasn’t because of the Pakistanis who did an amazing job, and really tried to help us and the Iranians bridge the gap and get to a deal.
“We’ve been at it now for 21 hours. We’ve had a number of discussions with the Iranians, that’s the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it is bad news for the United States of America.
“We go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made it very clear what our redlines are, what we are willing to accommodate them on and what things we are not willing to accommodate them on. We’ve made that as clear as we possibly could, and they’ve chosen not to accept our terms.”
JD Vance answers limited questions about Iran talks
1. What have the Iranians rejected: Vance dismissed disclosing the details in public after having negotiated for 21 hours in private. “The simple fact is: 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,” he added. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
“Their nuclear program, such as it is. The enrichment facilities that they had before, they’ve been destroyed. But 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.”
2. On possible framework in place and frozen Iranian assets: “We talked about all those issues… and we talked about a number of issues beyond that. Certainly those things came up, but again, we just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms.”
“I think we were quite flexible… quite accommodating. President told us, ‘You need to come here in good faith and make your best effort to get a deal.’ We did that, and unfortunately we were unable to make a headway.”
3. How often Vance communicated with Trump during the rounds: “Obviously, we were talking to the president consistently,” he replied. “I don’t know how many times we talked to him – a half dozen times, a dozen times, over the past 21 hours. We also talked to Admiral Cooper, Pete, Marco, the entire national security team. We talked to Scott Bessent a number of times.”
“We were constantly in communication with the team because we were negotiating in good faith. We leave here with a very simple proposal: A method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We will see if the Iranians accept it.”
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