Australia’s chief diplomat says Canberra is disappointed after high-level US and Iranian officials failed to make a deal during marathon peace talks.
US Vice President JD Vance on Sunday emerged from 21-hours of negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan, saying the American delegation put forward their “final and best offer” but 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 told reporters.
“So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are.”
Reacting to the news, Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged both sides to uphold the tenuous two-week ceasefire announced earlier in the week and “return to negotiations”.
“It is disappointing that the Islamabad talks between the United States and Iran have ended without agreement,” she said in a statement.
“The priority now must be to continue the ceasefire and return to negotiations. We continue to want to see a swift resolution to this conflict.
“Any escalation in the conflict would impose an even greater human cost and further impact the global economy.”
Pakistan, which brokered the ceasefire and mediated the talks, has made a similar appeal to the warring countries.
Its foreign minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar thanked Washington and Tehran for coming to the table and said he hoped “the two sides continue with the positive spirit to achieve durable peace and prosperity for the entire region and beyond”.
“It is imperative that the parties continue to uphold their commitment to ceasefire,” he said.
In his post-talks remarks, Mr Vance described the negotiations as “substantive discussions” but highlighted Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as the main barrier.
He said the Iranian delegation had not given “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”.
The Iranians offered a different account, with foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei saying they “reached an understanding on a number of issues” but that there were “differences of opinion on two to three” points.
“These negotiations were held after 40 days of imposed war, and were held in an atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion. It is natural that we should not have expected from the beginning to reach an agreement within one meeting,” Mr Baghaei told state media.
“No one expected that either.”
