Vance says Iran must cut enrichment capacity to end seven-month war

Vice President JD Vance told Reuters that Iran must make a “meaningful” cut in nuclear enrichment capacity to end the seven-month US-Iran war.

“If you don’t want a nuclear weapon, then why do you need 60% enriched fuel? … That’s a very basic threshold issue,” Vance said in Fairbanks after a Monday rally. A deal needs a real cut, not future drawdown promises.

Vance, who has led the talks, brokered a September peace deal that collapsed. Both sides have traded proposals to end the war and reopen the strait, but Trump rejected Tehran’s latest offer and warned operations could intensify after the midterms.

The US is engaging President Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, though Vance questioned their authority, noting joint US-Israeli strikes at the war’s start killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “It’s not totally clear how their country makes decisions,” he said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei replied Sunday that US officials know their counterparts: “the problem is actually the opposite: it lies in the contradictory positions and mixed messaging from US officials.”

Vance said he’d spoken to field commanders and dismissed munitions-shortage concerns; Iran has periodically hit commercial ships in Hormuz but largely failed to stop energy exports. Reuters put the war’s cost at $3 billion a month.

In Alaska to rally for Senator Dan Sullivan, locked in a tight race with Mary Peltola, Vance — seen as a leading 2028 Republican contender — said he had not decided whether to run: “I’m inherently a procrastinator.”