- VP Vance says US wants “actions for actions”, not promises.
- Vance questions Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium to 60%.
- Says Iran’s nuclear, enrichment facilities destroyed, must not be rebuilt.
Iran has previously said it will make no nuclear concessions in talks with the US.
US Vice President JD Vance said Washington would continue to pressure Iran until Tehran takes concrete steps to prevent the rebuilding of its nuclear programme, saying the United States would not accept promises in place of action.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters on Monday, Vance said preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon remained the fundamental goal of the US operation, while other developments, including attacks on commercial shipping, were secondary to that objective.
“The goal here is to prevent the Iranians from having a nuclear weapon, and really to prevent regional nuclear proliferation,” Vance said.
Vance said Iran’s nuclear facilities and enrichment facilities had been destroyed and the United States would ensure Tehran could not rebuild those sites or restore its nuclear capacity.
“That’s fundamentally the goal here, and everything else that’s happening, from them terrorising shipping to our response to that, is really a subplot of the much bigger goal of keeping them from having a nuclear weapon.”
He accused Iran of trying to use attacks on commercial shipping to pressure Washington and disrupt the global economy, but said the strategy was backfiring.
“Every time they try to cause damage to the world economy, they end up causing much greater damage to themselves,” Vance said.
The vice president said Washington remained willing to reach an agreement with Tehran, but stressed that any deal would require concrete Iranian action rather than assurances.
“What the president has said is, you know, look, from the very beginning, we’re willing to strike an agreement where the Iranians commit to not rebuilding their nuclear program and take real steps in order to do that, but it takes two to tango, and we’re not going to trade words for actions,” Vance said.
“In other words, the United States is not going to do things for mere promise of actions on the Iranian side. We need to trade actions for actions here, and we’ll see what the Iranians do.”
Vance also questioned Tehran’s continued enrichment of uranium to 60%, saying such enrichment was unnecessary for energy production.
“If you don’t want a nuclear weapon, then why do you need 60% enriched fuel?” he said.
“Sixty percent enriched uranium, you know, I’m hardly a nuclear scientist, but I’ve learned this: you don’t need that for any energy production. You don’t need it for anything except to have threshold weapons-grade uranium.”
On the negotiations, Vance said Washington was dealing with Iran’s political leadership, including its foreign minister, but acknowledged that the United States was not entirely certain how decisions were being made inside Tehran.
He said some people within Iran wanted an agreement while others were trying to sabotage a deal.
Vance said he was involved in the talks, but that President Donald Trump was ultimately directing the process and setting the administration’s objectives.
The vice president said the US was also seeking to prevent a wider nuclear arms race, arguing that an Iranian nuclear weapon could prompt other countries in the region to pursue their own weapons.
“So, you know, you don’t want the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to have a nuclear weapon. You also don’t want to radically increase the number of nuclear weapons in the world,” he said.
Vance declined to discuss classified intelligence when asked about reports of a possible Iranian operation targeting the US-linked RAF Fairford air base in Britain, but said Washington was aware of Iranian efforts to target American assets around the world.
“I’m not going to speak to classified intelligence. Nothing has happened yet,” he said. “We’re very aware that the Iranians are trying to conduct strikes against American assets all over the world.”
2026-10-07 05:23:00
