Headline

Iran Tensions Rise: Vance’s Talks Trip Paused for Now

Shabih Abbas
  • Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Pakistan for a second round of negotiations with Iran has been put on hold after Tehran failed to respond to American positions, a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the situation said Tuesday. Iran, for its part, said it had not yet decided whether to resume talks with the United States.

 

With the two-week truce set to expire Wednesday in Iran, it was unclear what steps, if any, Iran or the United States would take next. Talks could resume at a moment’s notice though President Trump has suggested that he did not want to extend the truce without a longer-term agreement.

 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said Iran had not decided whether to even go to Pakistan. He blamed it on “contradictory messages, inconsistent behavior and unacceptable actions by the American side,” according to the nation’s state broadcaster, IRIB.

 

But in private, two senior Iranian officials had said Monday that an Iranian delegation was making plans to travel to Pakistan on Tuesday and to resume talks. The Iranian officials said that Mr. Ghalibaf would attend negotiations with the United States if Mr. Vance were there.

 

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Mr. Trump expressed optimism about potential talks but said that the U.S. military stood ready to bomb again if no deal was struck with the Iranian government. “We don’t have that much time,” he said.

 

Even if the sides return to the negotiating table, many sticking points remain — on Iran’s nuclear program, for instance, and on the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic conduit for oil and gas. The threat of Iranian attacks has throttled shipping traffic through the strait, prompting an American blockade of Iranian ports that the U.S. Navy says has forced 28 ships to turn around.

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