Just when there were high hopes of possible stepping stones to peace through diplomatic talks, Iran and the United States have again failed to clinch a deal on ending their war, Credibility News reports.
The two warring nations conspicuously failed to reach an agreement despite marathon talks that ended in a deadlock on Sunday in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Observers note that the failed peace talks jeopardise ceasefire hopes, as each side blamed the other for the failure of the 21-hour negotiations to end fighting that has killed thousands, roiled the global economy and sent oil prices soaring since it began more than six weeks ago, according to Reuters.
United States Vice President JD Vance, the head of the US delegation, did not hide his frustration.
“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 said. “So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made it very clear what our red lines are.”
Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who led his country’s delegation along with Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, blamed the US for not winning Iran’s trust despite his team offering what he described as “forward-looking initiatives.”
“The US has understood Iran’s logic and principles,” Qalibaf said on X. “It’s time for them to decide whether they can earn our trust or not.”
Delegations from both sides have now left Islamabad to return home, sources told Reuters. The talks, which followed a ceasefire earlier in the week, were the first direct US-Iranian meeting in more than a decade and the highest-level discussions since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Vance blamed Iran, saying the country had chosen not to accept American terms, including a commitment not to build nuclear weapons.
“We need to see 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,” he said. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
On the other hand, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching an agreement. Other Iranian media reported that there was agreement on a number of issues but that the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear programme were the main points of difference.
Tehran has long denied seeking to build a nuclear weapon.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said it was “imperative” to preserve the two-week ceasefire that was agreed last Tuesday, as the sides attempt to wind down a war that began on February 28 with air strikes by the US and Israel on Iran.
But Israeli security cabinet minister Zeev Elkin told Army Radio that more talks were still an option, while adding: “The Iranians are playing with fire.”
In his brief press conference, Vance did not mention reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for about 20 percent of global energy supplies that Iran has blocked since the war began.
Vance said he had spoken with President Donald Trump as many as a dozen times during the talks. But even as the negotiations continued, Trump signalled that he was not desperate for a deal.
“We’re negotiating. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me, because we’ve won,” he told reporters.
According to Reuters, as the talks were ongoing, Israel continued bombing Tehran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, insisting that conflict was not part of the Iran-US ceasefire. Iran says the fighting in Lebanon must stop.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah rocket launchers overnight into Sunday, and black smoke could be seen rising in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut. In Israeli villages near the border, air raid sirens sounded, warning of incoming rocket fire from Lebanon.
Tehran is demanding control of the Strait of Hormuz, payment of war reparations, a ceasefire across the region including in Lebanon, and the release of its frozen assets abroad. Tehran also wants to collect transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz.
Despite the differences in Islamabad, three supertankers fully laden with oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, shipping data showed, in what appeared to be the first vessels to exit the Gulf since the ceasefire deal. Hundreds of tankers are still stuck in the Gulf, waiting to exit during the two-week ceasefire period.
As the conflict continues, smaller nations are feeling the severe impact on their markets. Earlier on April 9, analysts on Arise News in Nigeria warned of already visible declines in exchange rates as a result of the persistence of the conflict between Iran, Israel and the United States.
Analyst Dr Patrick Edia confirmed that “we begin to see some of those impacts. If you look at what has happened for instance, our exchange rates in Nigeria, since the beginning of the war, you see that volatility in exchange rates.”
“If you plot the exchange rate against the dollar index, you will see that the exchange rate has somehow depreciated marginally. So there’s that volatility that is there.”
For Nigerian readers and indeed for smaller nations across Africa and the Global South, the US-Iran conflict is not a distant war. It shows up at the petrol pump and in the exchange rate. When global powers fight, it is often the smaller nations that pay the price.
Sources: Reuters
