Vance hails 'good progress' in Iran talks, suggests unfreezing Iranian assets
US Vice President JD Vance says negotiators "made a lot of good progress" in peace talks with Iran, saying that they had laid "a very good foundation" for a final agreement.
He told reporters that the Iranian delegation "threatened to walk out" of negotiations, or “at least there were social media threats that they would walk out”.
He said that there was “a little bit of threatening” and “whining but at the end of the day, the talks continued and we made great progress”.
Vance also suggested the possibility that the US could agree to unfreeze Iranian assets.
“We wanted to make sure that we set up a process where if, if we ever unfreeze Iranian assets, we can ensure that that that Iranian money goes to help the people of Iran and not to fund terrorism,” he said.
“Jared Kushner actually came up with a very interesting solution with the Qataris, where basically – again if – there is any frozen Iranian assets that are unfrozen, then we have approval over that process, the Qataris have approval over that process, and then the money would actually go to buy to buy American corn and American wheat for the benefit of the Iranian people.”
Vance further confirmed that IAEA nuclear inspectors are scheduled to arrive in Iran to ensure its compliance with the preliminary agreement.
“Our hope is that we get to the final deal and a permanent settlement. But right now, I think we’ve made great progress and we should all celebrate that in terms of when the nuclear inspectors are going to start," he told reporters.