Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday said “ceasefires are always messy,” and responded to claims by Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf that the U.S. has violated three clauses of the ceasefire agreement in its war with Iran.
The U.S. never promised Lebanon would be included in the ceasefire agreement, Vance said, despite Iran’s claims it was, chalking that up to a “reasonable misunderstanding” between the parties.
Vance said he’s not confident in how well Ghalibaf understands English, “because there are things that he said, frankly, that didn’t make sense in the context of negotiations that we’ve had.”
On Wednesday, the Iranian Parliament speaker claimed the U.S. is violating three parts of a ceasefire deal, citing continued fire in Lebanon, a drone allegedly entering Iranian airspace and a “denial of Iran’s right to enrich uranium.” Vance said that if Ghalibaf only has three points of disagreement, there must be quite a lot of agreement.
“First of all, he talked about an attack that allegedly happened on Iran and how that was a violation of the ceasefire. Ceasefires are always messy,” the vice president said, adding that an hour after President Trump announced the ceasefire, there were a bunch of missiles, the Israelis responded, and so did some of the Gulf Arab states.
There were new attacks on America’s Persian Gulf allies early Wednesday, followed by reports of explosions on Iranian islands in the Gulf.
“This is the nature of a ceasefire,” Vance continued. “No ceasefire ever goes without a little bit of choppiness. What we have been very clear about is that we want to stop the bombing. We want our allies to stop the bombing, and we want the Iranians to do the same thing. We’re seeing evidence that things are going in the right direction, but it’s going to take a little time.”
Vance said he found it “fascinating” that Ghalibaf said Iran refuses the “right” to give up uranium.
“We don’t really concern ourselves with what they claim they have the right to do. We concern ourselves with what they actually do,” he said.
Finally, on Lebanon not being included in the ceasefire agreement, Vance reiterated that he thinks it’s a “reasonable misunderstanding” between the parties. But the U.S. “never made that promise,” the vice president said. Israel has been launching attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“First of all, I actually think, and there’s a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith, you know, propaganda going on,” Vance said. “I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran, and the ceasefire would be focused on America’s allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states.”
Vance went on: “Look, if Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them, and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice. We think that would be dumb, but that’s their choice.”
