‘The president reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end,’ Vance said.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Feb. 17, following mediated talks between Washington and Tehran in Geneva, that Iran was ignoring Washington’s red lines, primarily those related to its nuclear program, which has been a bone of contention in U.S.–Iranian relations for years.
“In some ways, it went well; they agreed to meet afterwards,“ Vance said during a Fox News interview. ”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.”
He said that Washington’s primary goal is to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, which he said would be a disaster for Americans.
“The United States has certain red lines,” Vance said. “Our primary interest here is we don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. We don’t want nuclear proliferation. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, there are a lot of other regimes, some friendly, some not so friendly, who would get nuclear weapons after them.”
The vice president noted that Washington has a “very powerful military” and that President Donald Trump has shown willingness to use it in the past. He also said that the United States’ preference was for the issues to be resolved through “diplomatic negotiation,” calling the American negotiating team of U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner “remarkable.”
“The president reserves the ability to say when he thinks that diplomacy has reached its natural end,” he said. “We hope we don’t get to that point, but if we do, that will be the president’s call.”
Vance’s comments followed remarks from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was present at the talks, saying that some “guiding principles“ had been established during the negotiations.
Araghchi said that the two countries “were able to reach a general understanding on a set of guiding principles” and that they would now proceed based on those principles, according to a translation of his Feb. 17 post on Telegram.
“This does not mean that we can reach an agreement quickly, but at least the process has begun,“ Araghchi said. ”We hope this can be completed as soon as possible and are prepared to devote sufficient time to it. However, when it comes to drafting the text, the work becomes more detailed and complex.”
By Guy Birchall
