US–Iran talks in Islamabad end without agreement after 21 hours.
US cites Iran’s refusal to accept key terms, including nuclear commitments.
Strait of Hormuz reopening not addressed in negotiations.
Iran and the US failed to reach an agreement following their historic peace talks in Islamabad. Early on Sunday morning, Vice President JD Vance announced that the US delegation is heading back as Iran chose "not to accept our terms" following a 21-hour negotiation.
“We have been at it now for 21 hours, and we’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news,” he said in a press conference following the talks.
1 April 2026
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"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 told reporters after the talks ended. "So we go back to the United States, having not come to an agreement. We've made very clear what our red lines are."
Highlighting core goals that President Donald Trump expected to achieve from these negotiations, Vance said that Washington wanted an affirmative commitment from Tehran not to seek nuclear weapon and the tools that would enable them to build one. However, Iran did not agree on those terms, he noted.
Notably, there was no mention of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which is a strategic chokepoint that transit 20% of global energy supplies.
The peace talk ended days after the two-week ceasefire announcement, pushing global markets to uncertainty once again.
Meanwhile, the Iranian government said in a post on X that negotiations would continue and technical experts from both sides would exchange documents. As per the Iranian media, "excessive" U.S. demands had hindered reaching an agreement and that negotiations had ended.
In a statement, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that both sides continue to uphold their commitment to ceasefire.
This was the first direct discussion between the US and Iran over a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Iranian delegation, led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, arrived dressed in black in mourning for late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the war.
