Moon Desk: United States Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that intensive 21-hour discussions with Iran did not reach an agreement. He also appreciated Pakistan’s efforts for a deal. The US and Iranian delegations have left Islamabad to return home. He appreciated Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, saying, “Both incredible hosts, and whatever shortcomings of the negotiation, it wasn’t because of the Pakistanis who did an amazing job and really tried to help us and the Iranians bridge the gap and get to a deal.”
The US and Iran failed to reach an agreement to end their war despite marathon talks that concluded on Sunday in Islamabad, jeopardising a fragile ceasefire. Each side blamed the other for the failure of the 21-hour negotiations to end fighting that has killed thousands and sent global oil prices soaring since it began over six weeks ago. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said it was “imperative” to maintain the two-week ceasefire that was agreed on Tuesday as the two sides attempted to wind down a war that began on February 28 with air strikes by the US and Israel on Iran.
The talks in Islamabad, after a ceasefire earlier in the week, were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Trump’s stated goals have shifted, but as a minimum, he wants free passage for global shipping through the strait and the crippling of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme to ensure it cannot produce an atomic bomb. Tehran has long denied seeking to build a nuclear weapon.
Israel has also been bombing Lebanon and says that conflict is not part of the Iran-US ceasefire. Iran has insisted that the fighting in Lebanon has to stop. The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah rocket launchers overnight between Saturday and Sunday and black smoke could be seen rising in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Sunday. In Israeli villages near the border, air raid sirens sounded, warning of incoming rocket fire from Lebanon.
