US VP leaves Pakistan after failing to reach deal with Iran

US Vice President JD Vance departed Pakistan on Sunday, according to a pool report, soon after saying that talks with Iran had failed to reach an agreement. 

Vance boarded Air Force Two at 7:08 am on Sunday (0208 GMT) and waved to Pakistani officials from the top of the stairs.

Earlier, he said that talks with Iran had failed to reach an agreement, adding that he was leaving after putting forward a "final and best offer". 

Vance signalled that he was still giving time to Iran to consider the offer from the United States, which on Tuesday said it would pause attacks with Israel for two weeks pending negotiations.

"We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer. We'll see if the Iranians accept it," Vance told reporters after 21 hours of talks in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Vance said that the core dispute was on nuclear weapons. Iran insists it is not pursuing an atomic bomb, and the United States and Israel bombed sensitive Iranian sites both in the war launched on February 28 as well as last year.

"The simple fact is that 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," Vance said.

Meanwhile, Iranian state media said that “unreasonable demands” by the United States scuppered talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war in the Middle East.

“The Iranian delegation negotiated continuously and intensively for 21 hours in order to protect the national interests of the Iranian people; despite various initiatives from the Iranian delegation, the unreasonable demands of the American side prevented the progress of the negotiations. Thus the negotiations ended,” IRIB said on Telegram.