WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday the United States and Iran have made a lot of progress in their talks and neither side wants to see a resumption of the military campaign.
“We think that we’ve made a lot of progress. We think the Iranians want to make a deal,” Vance told reporters at a White House briefing.
Vance said he had just spoken to Trump, who stressed that the core issue for the U.S. is that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. If that happens, Vance said, countries around the Gulf would then want their own weapon, then other countries across the world would as well.
“We want to keep the number of countries that have nuclear weapons small, and that’s why Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
The United States wants Iran to work with Washington on a process to ensure that the Iranians would not rebuild their nuclear weapons capacity in the years to come.
“That’s what we’re trying to accomplish in negotiations,” he said.
Trump is under pressure to reach an accord that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz – a key route for global supplies of oil and other commodities. Trump has previously expressed hope that a deal was close on ending the conflict, and similarly threatened to renew military strikes on Iran if it did not reach an accord.
When asked if Russia could take possession of Iran’s enriched uranium, Vance said: “That is not currently the plan of the United States government. The Iranians have not raised it.”
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, David Ljunggren, Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chris Reese and Michelle Nichols )
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