Staff Correspondent
Islamabad, April 12, 2026 (Reuters): U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that his negotiating team was leaving Pakistan after not reaching a deal with Iran following 21 hours of negotiations, jeopardizing a fragile two-week ceasefire.
“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 told reporters here early this morning after the talks ended.
“So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are.”
Vance cited shortcomings in the talks and said Iran had chosen not to accept American terms, including to not build nuclear weapons.
A short time later, Vance waved goodbye from the top of the stairs as he boarded Air Force Two in Islamabad.
“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. That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said that “excessive” U.S. demands had hindered reaching an agreement and that negotiations had ended. Before Vance spoke, Iran’s government in a post on X had said negotiations would continue and technical experts from both sides would exchange documents.
The talks in Islamabad were the first direct U.S.-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In his brief press conference, Vance did not mention reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for about 20% of global energy supplies that Iran has blocked since the war began. The conflict has sent global oil prices soaring and killed thousands of people.
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