Vance says Iran must decide on next steps in talks

April 14, 2026

Summary

Vance said Iran must decide whether to continue talks after weekend negotiations in Pakistan ended without an agreement.

Why this matters

The talks concern U.S. efforts to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities and could affect whether negotiations resume after the latest round ended without a deal. Statements from both sides underscored continuing gaps over key terms.

Vice President JD Vance said Monday that Iran must decide whether talks with the United States will continue after weekend negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, ended without an agreement.

In a roughly 20-minute interview on Fox News’ “Special Report,” Vance said the U.S. delegation left Islamabad without a deal because Iranian officials were “unable to cut a deal and they had to go back to Tehran, either from [Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei] or somebody else, and actually get approval” to the terms the U.S. proposed.

Vance, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, attended the talks.

“Whether we have further conversations, whether we ultimately get to a deal, I really think the ball is in the Iranian court because we put a lot on the table,” Vance said. “We actually made very clear what our red lines were.”

Vance said those red lines were based on preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. He said one U.S. demand was taking possession of Iran’s enriched uranium, which he said is “buried underground” after U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities last June.

He said another demand was ensuring that Iran does not have the “ability to enrich uranium, which is how they got so close to a nuclear weapon before” those strikes.

“Those are really the two things where frankly, the Iranians, I think, did make some progress,” Vance said. “They moved in our direction, which is why I think we would say that we had some good signs.”

“But they didn’t move far enough, and so what we decided is, ‘You know what? Given that we don’t think this current team and this current timeline is going to be able to make a deal, let them go back to Tehran, we’re going to go back to Washington,’ and that’s where we are today,” he said.

After the talks ended without a deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran had “engaged in good faith” to end the war.

“But when just inches away from ‘Islamabad MoU’, we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade,” Araghchi wrote on X, referring to the United States. “Zero lessons earned. Good will begets goodwill. Enmity begets enmity.”

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