U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on April 13 that the United States has made “a lot of progress” in negotiations with Iran, but talks in Pakistan ended without a deal after Tehran declined to meet key U.S. demands, leaving it up to the Iranian regime to decide whether to move forward with diplomacy or continue fighting.
In an interview with Fox News’s “Special Report,” Vance said the U.S. delegation left Pakistan following 21 hours of talks after concluding that while Iran had moved “in our direction,” it ultimately did not go far enough to meet Washington’s red lines.
Those red lines, he said, center on preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, including requiring Tehran to give up its enriched uranium stockpile and accept mechanisms to ensure it cannot resume uranium enrichment in the future.
"We actually made very clear what our red lines were," Vance said. "They moved in our direction ... but they didn't move far enough."
Vance suggested that the talks ended at this stage in part because the Iranian negotiating team may not have had the authority to finalize such concessions and would need approval from leadership in Tehran.
“In the process of doing this negotiation, I do think that we acquired some knowledge about how the Iranians are negotiating, and this is ultimately why we left Pakistan, because what we figured out is that they were unable, I think the team that was there was unable to cut a deal, and they had to go back to Tehran, either from the supreme leader or somebody else, and actually get approval to the terms that we had set,” Vance said.
“Whether we have further conversations, whether we ultimately get to a deal, I really think the ball is in the Iranian court, because we put a lot on the table. We actually made very clear what our red lines were.”
Vance, who led the U.S. delegation in the talks, said “a very, very good deal” benefiting both countries is possible if the Iranians are willing to meet those red lines.
Iranian state media said the U.S. terms had been excessive. State media said Iran’s “nuclear rights” and control over the Strait of Hormuz, a claim not recognized by the international community, were among the points of contention.
Traffic through the critical waterway for global oil and gas shipments has been disrupted since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran at the end of February, and Iran retaliated with drone and missile attacks on Israeli and U.S. military assets across Gulf nations and laid sea mines in the strait.
Vance said during the interview that Iran’s actions to disrupt shipping in the waterway amount to “economic terrorism,” and the United States would respond by blocking Iranian ships from getting out of their ports.
“As the president [of the] United States showed, two can play at that game. And if the Iranians are going to try to engage in economic terrorism, we’re going to abide by a simple principle that no Iranian ships are getting out either,” he said.