Sunday April 12, 2026
www.thenewsdesk.ng
Iran and the United States failed to reach an agreement to end the war in the Middle East, US Vice President JD Vance said Sunday after marathon talks in Islamabad, adding that he was leaving after giving Tehran the “final and best offer”.
Vance said Washington was seeking a “fundamental commitment” from Iran that it would not develop a nuclear weapon, but that “we haven’t seen that” after holding the highest-level meeting between the two sides since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
However, he signalled that he was still giving Iran time to consider the offer from the United States, which on Tuesday said it would pause attacks with Israel for two weeks pending negotiations.
Pakistan, which hosted the talks and whose leadership had ushered the rival sides to the table, said it would keep facilitating dialogue and urged both countries to continue respecting the temporary truce.
Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB said negotiations stalled over “unreasonable demands of the American side”, though the country’s foreign ministry spokesman later noted that “no one” could have expected that after 40 days of war, they would reach an agreement within one session.
The United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, sparking retaliation from Tehran that has plunged the Middle East into conflict and the global economy into tumult.
Iran and the US had entered the talks mediated by Pakistan with maximalist positions, with Washington piling pressure by saying it had sent minesweeping ships through the vital Strait of Hormuz maritime route.
Signs of strain in the negotiations appeared when Iranian media accused the United States of making “excessive demands” over the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil transited before its effective closure by Iran during the war.
US President Donald Trump had also insisted several hours into the talks on Saturday that the United States had already triumphed on the battlefield by killing Iranian leaders and destroying key military infrastructure.
“Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me. The reason is because we’ve won,” Trump said.
After 21 hours of talks in the Pakistani capital, Vance told reporters that no deal could yet be struck.
“We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” Vance said, before departing for a nearby airport and flying out of Pakistan.
