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Islamabad, Apr 12 (UNI): The much-hyped talks between Iran and the United States in Islamabad for peace in West Asia have failed with both sides blaming each other for the fiasco.
While the US blamed Iran for rejecting the terms of an agreement, Iran said the talks ended without any outcome because of ‘excessive demands’ made by the US.
US Vice President J D Vance who led his country’s delegation at the talks, said they were returning home without a deal. He warned that the failure to reach an agreement was ‘bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States.’
‘Although there had been a number of substantive discussions, they (Iran) have chosen not to accept our terms,’ Vance told reporters before departing.
Iran said the two sides did not reach an agreement due to the US team’s excessive demands and ambitions. Tehran had insisted on securing Iran’s rights.
Vance said the key issue for the United States was whether Iran is willing to make a long-term commitment not to develop nuclear weapons.
‘The question is simple: 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 it yet. We hope that we will,’ he said.
Vance said that while Iran’s nuclear programme has been ‘destroyed,’ there is still need for a clear and lasting commitment to prevent any future development of nuclear weapons. He said the proposal presented by the United States was its ‘final and best offer.’
‘We’ve made it very clear what our red lines are, what things we are willing to accommodate them on and what things we are not willing to accommodate them on,’ Vance said, adding that the Iranian side chose not to accept those terms.
Iran said that during the nearly 21 hours of negotiations, their (Iranian) negotiating team, prevented the realization of US ‘excessive demands’ by preserving the fundamental rights of the people of Iran in various political and military fields and peaceful nuclear technology.
Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who headed the Iranian delegation at the talks, said that while Iran put forth several ‘forward-looking initiatives’ the United States ultimately failed to ‘gain the trust’ of the Iranian side.
‘I emphasized before the negotiations that we have the necessary goodwill and intention, but due to the experiences from the previous two wars, we do not trust the other side,’ Qalibaf said on X.
‘My colleagues presented forward-looking initiatives, but the other side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation,’ he added.
‘The United States understood our logic and principles, and now it is time to decide whether it can earn our trust or not. We believe that diplomacy of power is another approach alongside military struggle. We will not cease our efforts to consolidate the achievements of forty days of national defense by the Iranians for a moment,’ he said.
The US delegation included Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner while Iranian team included Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi and experts.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Iranian officials as saying that the Americans intended to achieve the goals that they failed to achieve by the war against Iran, including the issue of the Strait of Hormuz and the removal of nuclear materials from the country. The Iranian delegation thwarted that effort, Tasnim reported.
The Iranian team tried to push the American side towards reaching a common framework by offering various initiatives, but the American ‘greed’ for excessive demands had pushed them far from rationality and realism, Tasnim reported.
Vance said he spoke with President Donald Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks, and one of the most significant points of difference between the two sides had been around the development of nuclear weapons.
Iranian government had said earlier that negotiations would continue and technical experts from both sides would exchange documents.
The Islamabad talks were the first direct US-Iran meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Iranian delegation had arrived in Islamabad on Friday dressed in black in mourning for late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the war.
They carried shoes and bags of some of the 170 students who were killed in US bombing of a girls school in the beginning of the war.
