Vance-led talks helped build goodwill with Iran: report 

US-led talks with Iran failed to secure peace but built goodwill, raising hopes for future agreement. Washington believes pressure tactics, including a Hormuz blockade, may push Tehran to accept terms, despite disagreements over nuclear ambitions and perceived negotiating leverage

Washington: US Vice President JD Vance-led talks for peace with Iran may have been unsuccessful, but the 21-hour-long discussions helped build goodwill with the new leadership in Tehran, according to a media report.

The Washington Post, quoting unnamed US officials, reported that the measure of goodwill established during the talks in Islamabad has made Washington believe that Iran may accept their terms to end the deadly and costly war.

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It said that President Donald Trump’s announcement of a US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could force Iran to agree to 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 share the 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.

The Post report said it became clear to the US team once talks began that the Iranians did not fully appreciate the far-reaching nature of the Trump administration’s insistence that any deal must centre on prohibiting Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran has insisted for decades that it does not intend to build a nuclear weapon – a pledge that Trump and his allies, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have claimed cannot be taken at face value.

The administration has maintained that Iran must entirely give up its nuclear enrichment capability, which can also be used for civilian purposes. Iran has refused to go that far and appears to have hoped that Trump would settle for something less.

Vance tried to correct that misunderstanding throughout the discussions, the official said.

But Vance also used the negotiations to try to decipher how Iran actually felt about the position it was in – and determined that it believed it had more leverage than US officials think is justified by the realities on the ground, according to the US official, who did not elaborate on what the Iranians said.

Armed with a better understanding of Iran’s vulnerabilities, the official said the Trump administration now intends to test them.