Deadlock on Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear stockpile led to impasse, officials say

By Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — Entering this weekend’s high-stakes talks in Pakistan, US officials identified a number of key areas where they would need to see progress in order to declare success.

After hours of talks stretching into the early morning, US and Iranian negotiating teams had reached an impasse on several of those critical points, according to people familiar with the discussions.

For the US, Tehran’s refusal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium were nonstarters.

Without those issues resolved, Iran’s demands that the US lift sanctions and unfreeze billions of dollars in frozen assets also met a dead end, causing both sides to declare the marathon talks a bust.

“We’ve made very clear what our red lines are, what things we’re willing to accommodate them on, and what things we’re not willing to accommodate them on,” Vice President JD Vance said before leaving the luxury hotel where he’d spent the last 18 hours, returning to his airplane and flying home.

He did not say what would happen next, and US officials said they would wait to see what President Donald Trump signals about the future of the war now that negotiations appear stalled. It wasn’t clear whether Trump would allow more rounds of diplomacy before the two-week ceasefire put into place last week expires.

But writing on social media Sunday morning, Trump offered little clarity on whether the war would restart.

“I could go into great detail, and talk about much that has been gotten but, there is only one thing that matters — IRAN IS UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS!” he wrote. “In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our Military Operations to conclusion, but all of those points don’t matter compared to allowing Nuclear Power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people.”

He said the US would begin using its own navy to patrol the strait, vowing any Iranian ship that resists would be “BLOWN TO HELL.” But it wasn’t clear whether Trump would allow more rounds of diplomacy before the two week ceasefire put into place last week expires.

None of the American negotiators, including envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, stayed behind in Islamabad, Pakistan to resume the conversations, a US official said. The technical experts who accompanied the American delegation also departed.

Trump claimed his team had developed “very friendly and respectful” relations with their Iranian interlocutors. But he said the interpersonal ties mattered little “because they were very unyielding as to the single most important issue and, as I have always said, right from the beginning, and many years ago, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”

Some officials pointed to a fundamental difference in negotiating styles as an element in the deadlock. Iran has been willing in the past to submit to complex, winding talks to strike a deal. The process to reach the Obama-era nuclear agreement took roughly two years.

Trump’s desire for prolonged negotiations seems minimal.

But it’s also not clear the president has much appetite for resuming a war that has become unpopular among Americans, and which he claims the US has already won.

The main areas of Iranian resistance — its nuclear program and the strait — each present unique challenges for the United States.

The nuclear disagreement appears unchanged from before the war began. It was Iran’s refusal to give up enrichment and hand over the 400 kilograms of near-bomb grade uranium buried underground that caused an earlier round of negotiations, led by Witkoff, to stall.

Both sides presented offers meant to resolve the nuclear issue during the talks, officials said. Trump has previously claimed the US and Iran would work together to remove what he calls the “nuclear dust,” though Iran appeared unmoved.

It wasn’t clear whether a previous proposal, where the US would provide Iran with nuclear fuel for a decade in exchange for Iran halting all enrichment, was still on the table.

The Strait of Hormuz presents a newer problem. Iran kept the channel open during earlier talks, only choking off tanker traffic after the US and Israel launched strikes. Now, the closure is causing turmoil in global energy markets and political pain for Trump at home.

Trump has demanded Iran immediately reopen the waterway and issued threats if they did not – even as Vance was flying toward Pakistan for the talks. But Iranian negotiators, aware the leverage the strait is providing them, refused to submit until a final deal was reached, officials said.

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