A 21-hour round of high-stakes talks led by US Vice President JD Vance may not have yielded a breakthrough with Iran, but it helped establish goodwill and offered Washington deeper insight into Tehran’s negotiating stance, a media report said.
The Washington Post, quoting unnamed US officials, reported that the goodwill built during discussions in Islamabad has led Washington to believe Iran could still accept its terms to end the ongoing conflict.
The report added that President Donald Trump’s announcement of a potential US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could pressure Iran into reaching a deal.
“A US official with knowledge of the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks, said Vance was keenly aware going into the negotiations of the mistrust and risk of misunderstanding between the United States and Iran,” the report said.
The official said Vance and the US negotiators had developed rapport and became warmer with each other.
Trump appeared to echo that assessment. “We had a very intensive negotiation, and toward the end, it got very friendly,” he told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”. “And we got just about every point we needed except for the fact that they refuse to give up their nuclear ambition,” he said.
According to the report, US officials realised early in the talks that Iranian negotiators did not fully grasp the extent of the Trump administration’s demand that any agreement must prohibit Tehran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has long maintained that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons — a position dismissed by Trump and his allies, including Benjamin Netanyahu, who argue the claim cannot be accepted at face value.
The US administration has insisted that Iran must completely abandon its nuclear enrichment programme, which also has civilian applications. Tehran has rejected that demand and appeared to expect a compromise from Washington.
Vance sought to address this gap in understanding throughout the negotiations, the official said.
At the same time, he used the talks to assess Iran’s perception of its own leverage, concluding that Tehran believes it holds stronger bargaining power than US officials consider justified, according to the official, who did not elaborate further.
Armed with a clearer picture of Iran’s vulnerabilities, the official said the Trump administration now plans to test those pressure points.