JD Vance says US and Iran have 'made a lot of progress' on ceasefire negotiations

The United States and Iran have made significant progress toward extending their ceasefire agreement, but President Donald Trump has not yet decided whether to approve the deal, US Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday (May 28). “We're going back and forth on a couple of language points. We've made a lot of progress here,” Vance told reporters, just hours after US officials indicated that Washington and Tehran had reached an agreement in principle.

The vice president said discussions were continuing and suggested that a final endorsement from Trump could come if remaining concerns are resolved. “Hopefully, we'll continue to make progress, and the president will be in a position where he can endorse the agreement, but obviously that's still TBD (to be determined),” he added. Vance said that while negotiations between the United States and Iran have made significant progress, key disagreements remain over Tehran’s nuclear programme and stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

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While emphasising that talks were moving forward, Vance said several major issues still needed to be resolved before President Donald Trump could formally back any agreement. “There are a couple of issues on the nuclear stuff, the highly enriched stockpile, and also the question of enrichment. So we’re going back and forth with them. We do think they’re negotiating, at least so far, in good faith,” Vance said.

“Hopefully, we’ll continue to make progress, the president will be in a position where he can endorse the agreement, but obviously that’s still TBD.” Vance also warned that a final agreement has not yet been secured and said negotiations could still face setbacks. “We’ll get to a point where we could potentially sit down and settle these issues, but that requires us to make a little bit more progress. I can’t guarantee that we’re going to get there, but right now I feel pretty good about it,” he said.

Despite a recent exchange of attacks between Washington and Tehran, Vance said the ceasefire remains intact, while stressing that the US still reserves the right to carry out defensive military strikes if necessary.

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