When U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance lands in Islamabad, Pakistan, for his second round of dialogue with Iran, he will encounter the same impediments as in the failed meeting on April 11. The ayatollahs’ regime remains steadfast and inflexible to Washington’s demand that it renounce its uranium enrichment, nor does it seem willing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while the American naval blockade lasts, nor to withdraw its financial and logistical support for its allied militias in the region.
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President Donald Trump has entrusted Vance with the impossible mission of finding a quick and triumphant exit from the war, which is now in its eighth week, although he initially predicted that this “excursion” would last “four or five.” Meanwhile, the American people express in polls their rejection of the conflict and, especially, of the deployment of soldiers on the ground, which seems to be the only way to achieve the maximalist objectives declared by the White House.
Trump announces that peace talks with Iran could resume this Friday in Islamabad
With that possibility ruled out for now, and Tehran’s capacity for resistance demonstrated, Washington has no choice but to seek a middle ground: an agreement that surpasses the one forged by Barack Obama in 2015, which allowed but limited the Iranian nuclear program for civilian purposes. In 2018, during his first term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from this pact, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, alleging that the Persian country had secretly maintained its plan to produce a nuclear bomb.
Eight years later, according to The Washington Post, he is willing to negotiate a similar agreement. If that pact established restrictions on uranium enrichment for 15 years, the White House proposed in the first round of dialogue a total suspension of 20 years; that is, it moved away from the initial goal of completely eliminating Tehran’s nuclear ambition, while seeking to improve the terms of the agreement. Iran, in a position of strength due to its blockade of Hormuz, rejected the proposal and offered a 5-year suspension, which the U.S. rejected.
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Since Trump withdrew from Obama’s nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions, Iran has accumulated approximately 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, below the 90% enrichment needed for an atomic bomb, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Trump has insistently said that the U.S. will take all the uranium and that Iran has already made that concession, but nothing indicates that the regime has accepted it, as the nuclear program – which it claims is for civilian purposes – is a source of national pride.
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According to officials consulted by the Post, the White House is also considering the possibility of unblocking $20 billion from Iran, from oil sales revenues that have been held in banks around the world due to imposed sanctions. This sum is more than ten times higher than the $1.7 billion that Obama delivered as a bargaining chip to reach an agreement, a concession strongly criticized by the Republican bench.
Donald Trump, U.S. President
“The 2015 deal was a guaranteed path to a nuclear weapon. Our deal with Iran will be much better”
The 2015 deal “was a guaranteed path to a nuclear weapon, which will not happen with the deal we are working on,” Trump promised Monday via Truth Social: “Our deal with Iran will be much better.” On Tuesday, just hours before the ceasefire announced two weeks ago expired, the president decided to extend the truce indefinitely until Tehran, whose leadership he claimed was fractured, “can present a unified proposal.” It was a way to buy time, while maintaining the naval blockade, to achieve concessions from the enemy.
In parallel, Vance suspended his trip to Islamabad, initially scheduled for Monday, due to Iran’s no-show, which decided not to attend the negotiating table given the “contradictory messages, inconsistent behavior, and unacceptable actions by the American side,” according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei. Influencing its refusal to negotiate was the U.S. naval blockade, which Tehran considers an “act of war” that violates the truce, and especially its interception in the Gulf of Oman of an Iranian cargo ship with 5,000 containers, the Touska, which had tried to evade the blockade.
This morning, Trump announced that it “is possible” that dialogue with Iran will resume this Friday and bring “good news.” He said this in statements to the allied media New York Post, after a Pakistani source affirmed that the second round of peace talks is “scheduled in Islamabad in the next 36 to 72 hours.” If Tehran finally sends its delegation, something it has not confirmed, the American delegation will be composed, as in the previous meeting, by Vice President Vance, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his close friend and special envoy to the conflicts in which he intervenes, Steve Witkoff.
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