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

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

After hours of talks stretching into the early morning Sunday, 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.

The White House on Sunday spelled out the “red lines” it says Iran wasn’t able to agree to during the hourslong talks. Many are conditions Iran has previously rejected, as Tehran appears to maintain its hardline stance even after six weeks of war.

According to a White House official, the nonnegotiable parameters Trump set for Iran include: ending its uranium enrichment; dismantling its major nuclear enrichment facilities, which were badly damaged during US strikes last June; retrieving the highly enriched uranium believed to be buried underground; accepting a broader “peace, security and de-escalation framework” that includes regional allies; ending funding for terrorist proxy groups; and fully opening the Strait of Hormuz and charging no tolls for passage.

Meanwhile, 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.”

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.

“Toward the end it got very friendly, and we got just about every point we needed except for the fact that they refuse to give up their nuclear ambition,” Trump said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”

He predicted that Tehran would return to the negotiating table while warning that he could take out Iran in “in one day.” “I predict they come back and they give us everything we want,” Trump said.

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 Tehran appeared unmoved.

It wasn’t clear whether a previous proposal, in which the US would provide Iran with nuclear fuel for a decade in exchange for Tehran 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 it 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.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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