US Vice-President J D Vance on Friday warned Iran not to “play” the US as he headed overseas for negotiations aimed at ending the war.
President Donald Trump has tasked the member of his inner circle who has seemed to be the most reluctant defender of the six-week-old conflict with Iran to now find a resolution and stave off the US president’s astonishing threat to wipe out its “whole civilisation”.
Vance, who has long been scepticalns are willing to negotiate in good faith, we’re certainly willing to extend the open hand,” Vance told reporters before boarding Air Force Two to make his way to the talks in Pakistan.
But he added, “If they’re gonna try and play us, then they’re gonna find that the negotiating team is not that receptive.” Vance’s trip comes as a tenuous, temporary ceasefire appears to be on the precipice of collapsing.
The chasm between Iran’s public demands and those from the US and its partner Israel seems irreconcilable. And in the US, where Vance might ask voters in two years’ time to make him the next president, there is growing political and economic pressure to wrap it up.
As Vance made his way to the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said in a social media post that a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, and the release of blocked Iranian assets “must be fulfilled before negotiations begin.” He did not elaborate further.
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