JD Vance warns that the Iranian regime has not yet met Trump's main demands in the nuclear negotiations
Vance also noted that the second round of nuclear negotiations with Iran yielded some progress and that there was even an agreement to hold an upcoming meeting.
Vance at the White House/ Oliver Contreras
EVice President JD Vance said Tuesday that Iran's regime had not heeded key demands of President Donald Trump during negotiations in Geneva, even though Washington agreed to grant Tehran two weeks to narrow differences between the two sides. Despite this, Vance explained during an interview with the conservative Fox News network that the second round of nuclear negotiations with Iran yielded some progress and that there was even an agreement to hold a next meeting.
"In some ways it went well. They agreed to meet afterward. But in other ways, it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through," commented the vice president, who also stressed that one of those non-negotiable conditions is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Similarly, Vance explained that a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic could trigger a broader global arms race, which would pose risks to U.S. security. "The president of the United States is very much trying to find a solution here, whether it’s through diplomatic options or through another option, that means the Iranians cannot have a nuclear weapon," he added.
Elsewhere in the interview, the vice president emphasized that negotiations will continue for now, but left open the possibility that diplomacy could reach its limit. "We’re going to keep on working it, but of course, the president reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end. We hope we don’t get to that point, but if we do, that, will be the president’s call," Vance noted.
Iran and nuclear energy
While Tehran continues to insist that its uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes,Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon country that has produced uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, a level close to 90 percent that is usually associated with weapons-grade material.
Much of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to remain buried under the rubble of nuclear facilities attacked by U.S. and Israeli forces in June. During earlier talks in Oman, Iranian representatives told their U.S. counterparts that they were willing to ship that material-enough for about a dozen nuclear weapons-out of the country, possibly to Russia, according to officials in Iran, the United States and the Arab world.
LATEST
