US President Donald Trump appears to be removing Vice President J.D. Vance from leading peace negotiations with Iran, telling him to shift his attention to domestic problems in the United States.
The New York Times interprets Trump’s social media post as an informal suspension of Vance’s involvement in the negotiations, while Politico reports that the president is “pulling” his deputy away from the issue.
“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days are long gone,” Trump wrote.
In the same post, the US president said he had asked Vance to focus entirely on corruption and crime in cities and states governed by Democrats.
The development comes after Vance’s recent remarks linking the Republicans’ heavy losses in the midterm elections to the war against Iran.
“The reason we lost is the war,” the vice president had written, arguing that losing control of the Senate for the next six years could not be justified by the conflict.
Earlier this year, Trump had tasked Vance with leading negotiations with Tehran. In April, the vice president travelled to Pakistan, where he held marathon talks with Iranian representatives, but the meeting ended without an agreement.
Most recently, Vance had contacted a senior Iranian official through Qatari intermediaries, proposing that negotiations resume and that an immediate meeting be held between representatives of the two countries, which he would personally lead.
