Vance: Ball now in Iran’s court
Washington—The United States said “the ball is in the Iranian court” on ending the Mideast war, as diplomats accelerated efforts on Tuesday toward a new round of peace talks after weekend negotiations failed to produce a deal.
US Vice President JD Vance had left talks hosted by Pakistan on Sunday, saying he had handed Tehran the “final and best offer.”
Iran has blamed Washington for making maximalist demands, but its leaders have in the last hours not dismissed efforts by world leaders to get both sides back to the negotiating table.
Crucially, a fragile two-week truce agreed last Wednesday to give time to find a lasting ceasefire remained in place, even though a US naval blockade of Iranian ports began at the Strait of Hormuz, which had been effectively closed by Tehran.
The standoff at the strait, through which one-fifth of global oil transits, failed to dampen optimism at global markets, with Asian equities rallying while oil continued a downward slide.
‘They want a deal’
President Donald Trump insisted Iranian representatives had called Washington since a US delegation returned empty-handed from negotiations in Islamabad.
“I can tell you that we’ve been called by the other side. They’d like to make a deal. Very badly, very badly,” Trump told reporters outside the Oval Office.
Diplomatic efforts were also accelerating elsewhere, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov landing in Beijing on Tuesday, hours after Iran’s state news agency reported that he had spoken about the crisis in a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi.
Moscow has offered to hold Iran’s enriched uranium safely as part of any deal.
Trump has insisted that an agreement must include stopping Iran from ever getting its hands on a nuclear weapon, having launched the war under the pretext that Tehran was developing an atomic bomb—which it denies.
During weekend talks, the United States reportedly sought a 20-year suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, according to media reports on Monday.
‘Full efforts’ underway
Iran in turn proposed to suspend its nuclear activity for five years, which US officials rejected, according to The New York Times.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday that “full efforts are underway” to reach an agreement to stop the fighting and that US-Iran ceasefire was “holding.”
Iranian state TV reported on Monday that Tehran “will continue to talk only within the framework of international law” in a phone call to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
“We have clearly announced the terms of the ceasefire and we will adhere to it,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said.
“I really think the ball is in the Iranian court, because we put a lot on the table. We actually made very clear what our red lines were,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
Washington has “no flexibility” on US control of Iran’s enriched uranium, and a verification mechanism to ensure it does not develop a nuclear weapon in the future.
“It’s one thing for the Iranians to say that they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. It’s another thing for us to put in place the mechanism to ensure that’s not going to happen,” Vance said.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi blamed the United States for the impasse in the talks during a call with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
“Unfortunately, we witnessed the continued excessive demands of the American side in the negotiations, which led to the failure to achieve a result,” his ministry quoted him as saying.
Freedom of navigation
The push for new talks came as a US naval blockade began around Iranian ports, an action announced by Trump on Sunday and slammed by Iran as a “grave violation of its sovereignty.”
Iran had already closed the Strait of Hormuz to what it regards as enemy shipping, allowing only vessels serving countries it deems friendly to cross.
With his blockade of Iranian ports, the US president was trying to starve Iran of funds but also pressure Beijing, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, to lean on Tehran to reopen Hormuz, according to analysts.
In a social media post, Trump said the bulk of Iran’s navy had already been destroyed during the war, but that if any of what he said were Tehran’s few remaining “fast attack ships” approach the blockade “they will be immediately ELIMINATED.”
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