US-Iran Talks Stall in Pakistan as Iran Cites Excessive US Demands

NDTV | April 12, 2026 | 08:25 AM IST | Breaking News, World | Follow on Google News

US-Iran Talks Stall in Pakistan as Iran Cites Excessive US Demands

New Delhi: 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.

The statement came shortly after US Vice President JD Vance, who was leading the American delegation, said that they were leaving Islamabad with their “final and best offer”.

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“We’ll see if the Iranians accept it,” he told reporters after negotiations.

Vance cited shortcomings in the talks and said Iran had chosen not to accept American terms, including to not build nuclear weapons.

“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,” he said.

“So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are,” he added.

He 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.

While Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner led the US team, the Iranian delegation was headed by Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.

NDTV