ISLAMABAD (AP) — America and Iran ended face-to-face talks on Sunday without an agreement, leaving a fragile two-week ceasefire unsure.
U.S. officials said the negotiations collapsed over what they described as Iran’s refusal to commit to abandoning a path to a nuclear weapon, while Iranian officials blamed the U.S. for the breakdown of the talks without specifying the sticking points.
Neither side indicated what’s going to occur after the 14-day ceasefire expires on April 22. Pakistani mediators urged all parties to keep up it. Each said their positions were clear and put the onus on the opposite side, underscoring how little the gap had narrowed throughout the talks.
“We want to see an affirmative commitment that they’ll not seek a nuclear weapon, and they’ll not seek the tools that might enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vice President JD Vance said after the 21-hour-long talks.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led Iran within the negotiations, said it was time for america “to make a decision whether it may possibly gain our trust or not.”
He didn’t mention the core disputes in a series of social media posts, though Iranian officials earlier said the talks fell apart over two or three key issues, blaming what they called U.S. overreach.
Iran has long denied in search of nuclear weapons but has insisted on its right to a civilian nuclear program. Experts say its stockpile of enriched uranium, though not weapons-grade, is barely a brief technical step away.
For the reason that U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, it has killed no less than 3,000 people in Iran, 2,020 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and greater than a dozen in Gulf Arab states, and caused lasting damage to infrastructure in half a dozen Middle Eastern countries. Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz has largely cut off the Persian Gulf and its oil and gas exports from the worldwide economy, sending energy prices soaring.
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Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his country will attempt to facilitate a brand new dialogue between Iran and the U.S. in the approaching days.
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“It’s imperative that the parties proceed to uphold their commitment to stop fire,” Dar said.
The deadlock — and Vance’s take-it-or-leave-it proposal that Iran end its nuclear program — mirrored February’s nuclear talks in Switzerland. Though President Donald Trump has said the next war was meant to compel Iran’s leaders to desert nuclear ambitions, both sides’s positions appeared unchanged in negotiations following six weeks of fighting.
There was no word on whether or not they would resume, though Iran said it was open to continuing the dialogue, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.
“We have now never sought war. But when they struggle to win what they did not win on the battlefield through talks, that’s absolutely unacceptable,” 60-year-old Mohammad Bagher Karami said in downtown Tehran.
US moves to shift established order in Strait of Hormuz
America and Iran entered talks with sharply different proposals and contrasting assumptions about their leverage to finish the war. Before negotiations began, the ceasefire was already threatened by deep disagreements and Israel’s continued attacks against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran’s 10-point proposal ahead of the talks called for a guaranteed end to the war and sought control over the Strait of Hormuz. It included ending fighting against Iran’s “regional allies,” explicitly calling for a halt to Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.
Pakistani officials told The Associated Press in March that the U.S. 15-point proposal included monitoring mechanisms and a rollback of Iran’s nuclear program. Speaking on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to debate details, they said it also covered reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Indeed, Iran’s closure of the strait has proved its biggest strategic advantage within the war. Around a fifth of the world’s traded oil had typically passed through on over 100 ships a day.
Through the talks, the U.S. military said two destroyers transited the critical waterway ahead of mine-clearing work, a primary because the war began. Iran’s state media, nonetheless, reported the country’s joint military command denied that.
“We’re sweeping the strait. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me,” Trump said as talks prolonged into early Sunday morning.
Israel presses ahead in Lebanon
The impasse raises latest questions on fighting in Lebanon. Israel has pressed ahead with strikes because the ceasefire was announced, saying the agreement didn’t apply there. Iran and Pakistan claimed otherwise.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported six people were killed Sunday morning in an Israeli strike in Maaroub, a village near the southern coastal city of Tyre. Though Israel’s strikes over Beirut have calmed in recent days, its attacks on southern Lebanon have intensified alongside a ground invasion it renewed after Hezbollah launched rockets toward Israel within the opening days of the Iran war.
Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected to start Tuesday in Washington, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s office has said, after Israel’s surprise announcement authorizing talks despite the shortage of official relations between the countries. Protests erupted in Beirut on Saturday over the planned negotiations.
Israel wants Lebanon’s government to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, very like was envisaged in a November 2024 ceasefire. However the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for a long time.
The day the Iran ceasefire deal was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing greater than 300 people within the deadliest day in Lebanon because the war began, in line with the country’s Health Ministry.
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Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, and Magdy from Cairo. E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing, Collin Binkley and Ben Finley in Washington and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.
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