While America’s convicted felon president Donald Trump watched video and let his vice president and son-in-law work out a deal to bring an end to the impasse to his unconstitutional war with Iran, 21 hours of negotiatiion ened with no agreement to end the crisis.
Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that 21 hours of peace talks in Pakistan, between the United States and Iran had failed to produce an agreement to end the war, leaving the question of what happens after the current two-week cease-fire up in the air.
“They have chosen not to accept our terms,” Mr. Vance said in a brief news conference in Islamabad, though he left open the possibility that terms could still be reached. “We leave here with a very simple proposal: a method of understanding that is our final and best offer,” he added. “We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.”
The marathon talks between high-level officials stretched past 6 a.m. local time on Sunday, a momentous encounter between decades-old adversaries as they sought to broker peace after more than a month of war. Mediated by Pakistan, the negotiating session was the highest-level face-to-face encounter between U.S. and Iranian officials since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which put the two countries on a collision course.
Esmaeil Baqaei, the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, said on social media earlier on Sunday that the discussions in Pakistan “were held on various dimensions of the main negotiation topics, including the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear issue, war reparations, lifting of sanctions and the complete end to the war against Iran and in the region.” Mr. Baqaei, who was in Pakistan as part of the Iranian delegation, added that the success of the talks depended on the United States’ “acceptance of Iran’s legitimate rights and interests.”
Israel was not involved in the talks, and even though its forces have not struck Iran since the cease-fire was reached, they have continued to strike targets in Lebanon. On Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Iran’s military had been badly damaged, the war was “not over.”
As Mr. Vance was detailing the impasse in negotiations, President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were at a sports arena in Miami for UFC 327, watching a video montage of past fights. Earlier in the evening, from Washington, Mr. Trump had projected nonchalance, claiming it did not matter to him whether the U.S. delegation reached an agreement with Iran. “We win, regardless,” he said. “We’ve defeated them militarily.”
Trump, as usual, is lying. Iran controls the control of oil from the Persian Gulf, shoots down U.S.miitary jets and has America in a bind. The U.S. had demanded that Iran immediately reopen the strait to all maritime traffic, but Iran said it would do so only after a final peace deal, according to Iranian officials.
Farnaz Fassihi, a veteran war correspondent for The Times also reports:
When talks between the United States and Iran ended just before dawn on Sunday morning without a permanent cease-fire, the Americans said they had made their final best offer and that Iran had not accepted.
“We’ve made very clear what our red lines are, what things we’re willing to accommodate them on, and what things we’re not willing to accommodate them on,” Vice President JD Vance said after 21 hours of meetings with top Iranian officials at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad.
Mr. Vance did not say what those red lines were. In the days leading up to the talks, both sides had issued public statements suggesting they remained far apart on several critical issues. They did not even agree on whether the two-week truce they reached on Tuesday applied to fighting in Lebanon, a dispute that nearly derailed the meeting.
By early Sunday, three main sticking points remained, according to two Iranian officials familiar with the talks: the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz; the fate of nearly 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium; and Iran’s demand that about $27 billion in frozen revenues held abroad be released.
The United States had demanded that Iran immediately reopen the strait to all maritime traffic. But Iran refused to relinquish leverage over the critical choke point for oil tankers, saying it would do so only after a final peace deal, according to the two Iranian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations.
Iran also sought reparations for damage from six weeks of airstrikes and asked for frozen oil revenues held in Iraq, Luxembourg, Bahrain, Japan, Qatar, Turkey and Germany to be released for reconstruction, the officials said. The Americans refused those requests.
Another point of contention was President Trump’s demand that Iran hand over or sell its entire stockpile of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium. Iran made a counterproposal, but the sides were unable to reach a compromise, the officials said.
“When two serious teams with an intention for a deal come to the table, it has to be a win-win for both. It is unrealistic to think we can come out of this without making any serious concessions; the same holds true for the Americans,” said Mehdi Rahmati, an analyst in Tehran, in a telephone interview.
A week ago, on Easter Sunday, the erratic and demented Trump, in a vile, profane post, threatened to unleash the American military to destroy and end Iran’s existence, returning them “to the stone age.” Such actions are considered war crimes under international law and brought demands that Trump be removed from office, immediately, by Congress and/or the Cabinet through the 25th Amendment or impeachment.
