Vance says no agreement reached with Iran after

The U.S. and Iranian delegations have paused their deliberations after hours of talks at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Talks are slated to resume on Sunday despite earlier notions that talks can be restricted to a single day. It was the Pakistani representatives who advised the break, with talks to resume in the morning, per the semi-official Iranian news company Mehr.

It’s after 7 a.m. in Islamabad, and Vice President JD Vance, alongside a staff of professional negotiators, has been at the resort for over 21 hours.

“We’ve been at it now for 21 hours, and we’ve had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement,” Vance told reporters after rising from the discussions. “And I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America.”

“So, we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement,” he added. “We’ve made very clear what our red lines are, what things we’re willing to accommodate them on and what things we were not willing to accommodate them on. And we’ve made that as clear as we possibly could, and they have chosen not to accept our terms.”

Iran, however, slammed the negotiations, with semi-official state news company Tasnim stating, “US excessive demands hindered a common framework and agreement.”

The U.S. delegation is led by Vance, and the Iranian one led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.

The delegations mentioned with Pakistan how to advance the already precarious ceasefire, which is already threatened by important disagreements and Israel’s ongoing assaults against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Lebanon’s health ministry said the death toll has surpassed 2,000.

There is little data about the content of the closed-door conferences, but the varied periods counsel that both sides are discussing the short-term ceasefire between Iran and the U.S.

The White House declined to give any updates about the talks, past an official confirming two hours in the past that they had been ongoing.

Semi-official Iranian news company Tasnim, however, reported that there are “serious differences” between the Iranian and American delegations.

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“The ball is in America’s court to overcome its usual excesses and replace ambition with a realistic approach,” a Tasnim reporter who attended the talks wrote on Telegram.

Hundreds of reporters camped at a conference middle across the road from the resort had been seen slowly trickling out of the premises before 1 a.m. Some have spent over 15 hours at the middle, with no updates from Pakistani officers as to what occurs next, reviews the New York Times.

Earlier Saturday, Iran’s State media company Tasnim launched restricted data about the assembly, citing the chance of a one-day extension of discussions.

Meanwhile, the U.S. navy said two destroyers transited the Iran-controlled Strait of Hormuz forward of mine-clearing work, for the first time since the battle started. Iran’s state media, however, said the joint navy command denied that.