- Iran blamed US' "unreasonable demands" for the deadlock in Pakistan talks to end the Middle East war
- Iranian delegation negotiated for 21 hours but US demands stalled progress, said Iranian state broadcaster
- US Vice President JD Vance called their offer "best and final" and awaited Iran's acceptance
Iran on Sunday said that "unreasonable demands" by the United States were behind the deadlock in the talks in Pakistan to end the war in the Middle East.
"The Iranian delegation negotiated continuously and intensively for 21 hours in order to protect the national interests of the Iranian people; despite various initiatives from the Iranian delegation, the unreasonable demands of the American side prevented the progress of the negotiations. Thus the negotiations ended," Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said on Telegram.
Iran's foreign ministry said no one had held any expectation that talks could have reached an agreement within one session.
"Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session. No one had such an expectation," ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said, according to IRIB.
He said Tehran was "confident that contacts between us and Pakistan, as well as our other friends in the region, will continue".
Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency said the US had sought concessions they couldn't obtain in the war, including around the Strait of Hormuz -- a crucial waterway for about a fifth of global oil flows -- and the removal of nuclear materials.
The statement came shortly after US Vice President JD Vance, who was leading the American delegation, said they were leaving Islamabad with their "final and best offer".
"We'll see if the Iranians accept it," he told reporters after multiple rounds of negotiations.
"Bad News For Iran"
JD Vance said Iran had chosen not to accept American terms, including to not build nuclear weapons.
"The simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” he said.
"That is the core goal of the president of the United States. And that's what we've tried to achieve through these negotiations," he said.
"The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States of America," Vance said.
He said that the US has made its "red lines very clear".
Vance also said he spoke with US President Donald Trump "half a dozen times" during the talks, which were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner led the US team, while the 71-member Iranian delegation was headed by Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi.
In a break with precedent, the two sides met directly, alongside Pakistani officials, and did not speak through mediators who shuttled between rooms.
US-Israel-Iran War
The war in the Middle East broke out on February 28 when the American and Israeli forces attacked Iran, killing its supreme leader Ali Khamenei and other senior leaders.
In response, Iran attacked Israel and US military bases in Gulf countries. Israel and the US also continued striking Iranian sites until Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire this Tuesday.
Thousands of people have so far been killed across the Middle East in the war.
