Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, center right, and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, center left, are greeted by Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, right, and Army Chief Field Marshal Gen. Asim Munir, left, upon their arrival at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. AP
The high-stakes talks between Tehran and Washington ended without agreement after more than 21 hours of discussions aimed at ending the war in the Middle East. US Vice President JD Vance said he was leaving Pakistan after presenting Iran with what he described as a “final and best offer,” leaving uncertainty over the fate of a fragile two-week ceasefire.
It remains unclear whether talks will resume, but the breakdown has reinforced concerns that Washington is unwilling to engage on equal footing. It also unclear how the stalled talks will affect the temporary truce.
Iran's parliament speaker, Mohamad Bagher Ghalibaf, who was part of peace talks with the United States this weekend, said on Sunday that Washington was "unable" to win Tehran's trust during the discussions.
“My colleagues in the Iranian delegation Minaab168 put forward constructive initiatives but ultimately the other side failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations,” Ghalibaf wrote on X.
“The United States understood our logic and principles, and now it is time to decide whether it can earn our trust or not,” he added.
Ghalibaf emphasized that Iran would continue pursuing its objectives through both diplomatic and military means.
“We believe that diplomacy of power is another approach alongside military struggle for the realization of the rights of the Iranian people, and we will not cease our efforts to consolidate the achievements of forty days of national defense by the Iranians for a moment,” he said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei confirmed that the talks had failed to produce a final agreement but stressed that dialogue remains ongoing through mediators.
“Diplomacy never ends,” Baqaei said, noting that the two sides had “reached an understanding on a number of issues” but still faced “differences of opinion on 2-3 important” matters.
He added that expectations for a swift breakthrough had been unrealistic. “Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session. No one had such an expectation,” he said.
He said Tehran was "confident that contacts between us and Pakistan, as well as our other friends in the region, will continue".
Baqaei said the outcome of future talks would depend on the “seriousness and good faith of the opposing side” and its willingness to accept Iran’s “legitimate rights and interests.”
He also pointed to the growing complexity of negotiations, citing new issues such as the Strait of Hormuz.
'Excessive demands'
Both sides entered the Islamabad talks with fundamentally different proposals. Iran’s 10-point plan called for a guaranteed end to the war and asserting its rights over the Strait of Hormuz, as well as a halt to Israeli war on Lebanon. The US 15-point proposal, by contrast, focused on restricting Iran’s nuclear program and reopening the strategic waterway.
Vance said Washington was seeking a "fundamental commitment" from Iran that it would not develop a nuclear weapon, but that "we haven't seen that" after holding the highest-level meeting between the two sides since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
This commitment was in fact explicitly included in the 2015 agreement, later denounced by the Trump administration in 2018, despite its endorsement under UN Security Council Resolution 2231.
Pakistan, which hosted the talks and whose leadership had ushered the rival sides to the table, said it would keep facilitating dialogue and urged both countries to continue respecting the temporary truce.
Iranian state media reported that negotiations stalled due to “the US team's excessive demands and ambitions,” saying that Washington sought to achieve through diplomacy what it had failed to secure suring the war, including control over the Strait of Hormuz and the removal of nuclear materials from Iran.
The reports said the Iranian delegation had attempted to steer talks toward a common framework through multiple initiatives but that “American greed for excessive demands had pushed them far from rationality and realism.”
Iran’s First Vice President Reza Aref said Tehran had demanded US recognition of its authority over transit through the Strait of Hormuz, which ironically had been fully open and undisputed before the US–Israeli war.
He said Iran’s “authority in the Strait of Hormuz” and its pursuit of compensation for damage caused by US and Israeli strikes were “the rights of the Iranian people.”
“This is our firm commitment to a strong Iran,” Aref wrote on social media.
Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who led his country's delegation at 2015 nuclear talks, also blamed the failure of negotiations to end the war on US attempts to "dictate" its terms.
"No negotiations - at least with Iran - will succeed based on 'our/your terms'," said Zarif, one of the architects of the nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers, which was abandoned in 2018 by US President Donald Trump.
"The US must learn: you can't dictate terms to Iran. It's not too late to learn. Yet," added Zarif in a post on X.
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