Vance says no peace deal with Iran has been reached to end war

A marathon round of high-stakes diplomacy in Islamabad ended without a breakthrough, as US Vice President JD Vance said the American negotiating team was leaving Pakistan after 21 hours of talks without securing a deal with Iran.

Vance blamed the impasse on what he described as gaps in the negotiations, saying Tehran had declined to accept US conditions, including a commitment not to build nuclear weapons.

“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,” Mr Vance said.

He added: “So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement.

Mr Vance said he talked with US President Donald Trump half a dozen times during the talks.

The meetings in Islamabad marked the first direct encounter between US and Iranian officials in more than a decade, and the most senior contact since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

What happens next could shape the fate of the fragile two-week ceasefire and efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which about 20% of global energy supplies pass and which Iran has blocked since the war began.

The fighting has driven oil prices sharply higher and left thousands dead.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif meets delegations on the sidelines of the talks (Pic: Iranian Foreign Ministry / Handout)

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said the negotiations collapsed because of what it called “unreasonable demands” from Washington in efforts to end the Middle East war.

It said: “The Iranian delegation negotiated continuously and intensively for 21 hours in order to protect the national interests of the Iranian people; despite various initiatives from the Iranian delegation, the unreasonable demands of the American side prevented the progress of the negotiations.

“Thus the negotiations ended.”

In ⁠a post on X, Iran’s government said that the talks had concluded and technical experts from both sides would exchange documents.

“Negotiations will continue despite some remaining differences,” the post added, but it did not say when they would restart.

According to a Pakistani mediating source, Mr Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi for two hours before breaking for a rest.

The Iranian delegation arrived on Friday wearing black to mourn late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the war.

Iranian officials said the delegation also brought ‌shoes and bags belonging to students killed in a US bombing of a school beside a military compound.

The Pentagon has said the strike is being investigated, but Reuters has reported that military investigators believe the US was likely responsible ⁠for it.

“There were mood swings from the two sides and the temperature went up and down during the meeting,” another Pakistani source said in reference to the first ‌round of talks.

Donald Trump said he was not bothered about the outcome the talks in Pakistan

For the US-Iran talks, Islamabad, a city of more than two million people, was placed under tight security, with thousands ⁠of paramilitary personnel and army ‌troops deployed on the streets.

Pakistan’s role as mediator underscores a striking turnaround for a country that was viewed as a diplomatic outcast only a year ago.

As negotiations got under way, the US military said it was “setting the conditions” to begin clearing the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait of Hormuz remains at the heart of the ceasefire discussions.

The US military said two warships had moved through the Strait of Hormuz and that preparations were under way ⁠to clear mines, while Iranian state media denied that any US ships had crossed the waterway.

Before the talks opened, a senior Iranian source told Reuters that Washington had agreed to release frozen assets ⁠in Qatar and other foreign banks.

A US official denied any agreement had been made to free the funds.

Alongside the release of overseas assets, Tehran is demanding control of the Strait of Hormuz, war reparations and a ceasefire across the region, including in Lebanon, according to Iranian state television and officials.

Tehran also wants to impose transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz.

Mr Trump’s stated aims have shifted, but at a minimum he is seeking free passage for global shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and a crippling of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme to ensure it cannot build an atomic bomb.

The US president said yesterday that he was unconcerned by the outcome of the Pakistan talks, arguing that the United States had emerged ahead in the war.

“Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me. The reason is because we’ve won,” Mr Trump told reporters.

“We’re in very deep negotiations with Iran. We win regardless. We’ve defeated them militarily,” Mr Trump added.

US ally Israel, which joined the 28 February attacks on Iran that triggered the war, has also continued bombing Tehran-backed Hezbollah militants ‌in Lebanon and says that conflict does not fall under the Iran-US ceasefire.

Mutual distrust is high.