US-Iran Talks Fail... What Happens Next?

Well, is Victoria and Nick back with you on Newscast today? Morning Nick. Hi, Vic.

And things have unraveled. Just yesterday we were talking to newscasters about the significance of the US and Iran being in the same room together, and of course we listed the stumbling blocks, didn't we? Yeah, and I mean that clearly was a big deal. It was twenty one hours of talks, but let us not forget, Vic. The United States in Iran have not spoken at this level since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in nineteen seventy nine. So right now the stumbling blocks were clearly just too big.

We have been at it now for twenty-one hours and uh we've had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians. That's the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States of America. So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We've made very clear what our red lines are, what things we're willing to accommodate them on.

them on and what things we're we're not willing to accommodate them on. And uh we've made that as clear as we possibly could and they have chosen not to accept our terms. Obviously the Iranian version is that the US demands they say were excessive and they're saying that the atmosphere of these talks was mistrust, suspicion, and doubt. So over right now. And Joe Pike's gonna join us as well to go through the reaction and we'll try and work out what happens next. Newscast. Newscast from the BBC.

Fat boy Slim and me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tattletale in the class. I have an apology, please. I trust almost nobody. Then Daddy has to sometimes use strong language. Next time. In Moscow. Take me down to Downy Street Fly me. Hello, it's Victoria in the studio. And it's Nick in the studio. Joe Pike also in the studio hello And we are recording at five to eleven on Sunday morning.

Forgive me if this sounds completely naive. I had no idea that that apparently they were trying to sort this in in less than twenty-four hours. I I I I honestly I thought we were talking weeks. And now it's all over, and J D Vance is back in the States.

Yes, I mean it took eighteen months, didn't it, to get the deal over the Iranian nuclear programme under the Obama presidency eighteen months. Uh Donald Trump doesn't like doing something in eighteen months. I mean he regards eighteen hours as quite

So he wants to get a move on. I I thought, I mean, on your show we'll be hearing it from a bit. We heard from Wes Streeting, who's obviously the health and social care secretary, and he said, look, these talks are over. And then he said the two most important words on your show, they're over for now.

Yeah. For now. And I mean if you want, Vic, we can sort of look at where the difficulties are now and then sort of put that into some sort of context. So the Iranians are saying that there were three sort of stumbling blocks. Firstly the demand of the United States at the Strait of Hormuz, that's of course where twenty percent of the world's oil supply normally goes through, that that's open and not

closed again by Iran. The second thing was the fate of this nine hundred pounds of enriched uranium. And let's not forget this is enriched to nearly weapons grade. And the third thing there was demand from Iran that twenty seven billion dollars of Iranian assets frozen abroad that they should be released. Now what J D Vant said is we the United States use an a need an affirmative commitment. from Iran, that they will not seek a nuclear weapon or the tools to acquire them.

So that is all looking on paper really, really difficult. But I wonder whether actually at this point you sort of, you know, take yourself up to the height of a bird and you look down and you ask two big questions. Number one, does Donald Trump want the Strait of Hormuz to be closed? No.

Does Iran want to be continually bombed by the United States and Israel? Well, Iran clearly has a much higher pain threshold, but they will be worried if the United States were to move in on Carg Island and not just tack military installations. But oil installations'cause ninety percent of oil exports go from that island. You think of those two big questions and that fundamentally means they probably don't want this to go on, so I wonder. whether we'll be back at the table at some point.

Hm, interesting. I mean I I I agree with all of what Nick said, uh Vic. I don't think the US failure in twenty or so hours is a is a massive shock. It does seemingly reflect the weakness of Donald Trump's hand and the contrast. between what Nick is talking about now and the bullishness of that v uh pre recorded video announcement on the morning of the

uh initial uh strikes from Donald Trump. I mean, it is is a huge uh contrast, especially as Donald Trump was basically saying to the Iranian people, some of them, uh Rise up, this is your one chance. Uh it has clearly not gone to plan, and the two options seem to be continue negotiations, which I'm sure will happen, but not immediately, or is there going to be some form of escalation? And that doesn't seem to be in Donald Trump. interest domestically for now but

No, and then then overnight he Donald Trump has said, bullish and and and casual in a way, Whatever happens, we've won. Doesn't matter what happens, we've won. Uh okay. But the strait is still not open. And y you said you sent two Navy vessels through it yesterday to test it. Iran says no you didn't. W we we're no further forward. And what happens to the ceasefire?

But do you know what, Vic? I think you've put your finger on the absolutely key moment here and it's picking up on a very significant thing that Joe said, which is talking about how weak domestically Donald Trump looks at the moment. And you were saying that there was Donald Trump in Miami last night with Marco Rubio at the ultimate fighting championship uh in Miami and he was, as you say, Vic, very bullish language. He was saying things bullish but also not just bullish nonchalant.

We win regardless. We've destroyed them militarily. And you slightly sense with Donald Trump and indeed the language from JD Vance in his Lama Bad is Is there some play acting going on? Are they wanting to show we've won? Do we care whether they come to the table? And that actually that is a cover as Donald Trump

seeks to deal with what Joe was saying is the appearance of weakness. He wants to look strong, but actually there will be some sort of diplomatic process going on underneath all of that.

One of the really interesting assessments I thought uh on the BBC this morning was Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI six talking to you, uh Vic on BBC One, who said the world is more dangerous as a result of the war in Iran, which is open ended without a clear end game. He said the risk for the UK is we look like our arms are folded and we're waiting for the Americans uh to fail. We need to position ourselves as helpful without crossing the line of

of uh of the Sakir Starmer is al already uh set out and we need to be emotionally intelligent in our interactions.'Cause the UK's in this awkward position. Yes, I Cooper has had this uh these meetings with forty plus of her um fellow uh foreign ministers from uh different countries. Yes, there are going to be officials

top senior foreign office officials from those countries meeting next week and the UK thinks it has some diplomatic role. But contrast to um the US and Iran's role, it sort of seems pretty pretty insignificant. Mm-hmm. He always does. He is he is unreal, that man, in terms of his insight. So Alex Younger used to be C, the head of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, and if you're a Bond fan, that's M. Now the head of MI6. You must be a Bond fan. Well may have been occasionally.

The head of MI six wouldn't usually spend a lot of time talking to the President of the United States. And on your show, Alex Younger said, Yeah, I I I know Donald Trump quite well He's not an ideological character. He does what Donald Trump wants to do. And um in this case he's you know, as as often happens to US presidents towards the end of their time, they become more traditional and he's become a more traditional president in a really idios i idiosyncratic, slightly weird way.

intervening in the Middle East, hanging out with Israel, doing wars is quite traditional playbook.

Let's talk a little bit about southern Lebanon because Israel has continued its attacks on southern Lebanon. So obviously there's no ceasefire there, that's clear. They were due to hold their own talks in Washington next week. That is a representative for the Israeli Government and a representative for the Lebanese Government. Here's the Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister, Doctor Tarek Mitri.

Bye. I am not using the word conditional but I think for those meetings to be meaningful uh we've got to to see uh some sort of uh cessation of hostilities. No matter if provisional. Okay. uh h how could you engage in meaningful discussions preparing neg through negotiations to talk about all issues, how can you do that while tens and hundreds

of of of people are are are being killed or injured. You've got to uh to put a stop to this to put this on hold to be able to have a constructive conversation but we are going on Tuesday to the meeting that will be held at the State Department. Now I should say I recorded that interview with the Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister yesterday, so I don't know if those talks on Tuesday will still go ahead now that the big talks in Islamabad have broken down.

I I don't know if they will. Just to say Israel has said its operations in southern Lebanon and actually across Lebanon are aimed at weakening Hezbollah and achieving what they call their military objectives. Lebanese officials say during the whole of this conflict, more than seventeen hundred people have been killed.

This is the UK government's view on the peace talks breaking down overnight. Uh the Health Secretary Wes Streeting was talking for the government on BBC One earlier. Well it's obviously disappointing that um the talks have have broken down for now. But the optimist in me says two things. Firstly, the mere fact that the US and the Iranians were willing to get around the table together.

uh is highly unusual and necessary. It's the only way we're going to end this war. Secondly, the nature of diplomacy is that every day ends in failure until you achieve success. So I don't think we should be too surprised. But what do you think? Yes ma'am. Now then, what is next? We want to make sure that the ceasefire holds, we want to make sure that we see a negotiated end to this, and one that puts um Iran's nuclear ambitions to bed.

Can we just try and nail what the possibilities are of what might happen next? Well one thing we do know, Vic, is that Wes Streeting is the best communicator in this government and he was working incredibly hard in that interview with you to make sure he did not create any headlines on Iran because the UK is not a major player here. So what's the UK gonna do? Well clearly Avet Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, is gonna continue with those what is it, forty strong uh talks with other countries.

so that there may be a process to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open. But that doesn't mean sending warships there tomorrow. It means in the event of a peace deal there could be some sort of process on hand. The next challenge Keir Starmer faces is saying yes or no to allowing American uh bombers to take off from UK bases, as he makes very clear that can only be in the context of collective self-defense.

And interestingly last week the Prime Minister was saying we're monitoring. We're monitoring what those what those bombers do because there is a red line for us. the UK will not allow those bases to be used for offensive operations. But on the big picture of what do we do where this bigger process goes We watch. The UK watches. Right.

But in terms of the big picture, the th the the possibilities are the ceasefire holes. The talks in Washington D C between Lebanon and Israel go ahead. Donald Trump escalates the war again, perhaps goes back to the threat he made on Truth Social last week. The war starts up again. What have I missed? What else could happen? Well, one reasonably senior person in Whitehill told me in the last forty eight hours or so

one of the key things they do every evening is sit and look at the uh Truth Social posts of Donald Trump, sort of that that account, and wait to see what is happening next. Wow. The that is a that is a key part of the sort of The diplomacy and inverted costs. The daily schedule of people uh in government circles and diplomatic circles, of course it is. There is this

uh slightly bizarre way that announcements are made uh unexpectedly. The only thing it's uh the other thing that I think it's worth saying is that the focus on Iran is really helpful. For Keir Starmer and his government. One ahead of the local elections, they think this is an issue that they are comparatively strong on, even though opposition parties say, well, uh

they don't necessarily agree with the initial Starmer decisions, but also think the UK military hasn't responded quickly and wasn't wasn't that prepared. But the UK government think they're in a good situation, therefore they'd far rather Keir Starmer was having meetings about this or touring the Gulf.

around Iran rather than community events. And he's of course he's not uh really welcome in in Scotland and probably not that welcome in Wales either. The second thing is there are other people in government who think that if there was to be a a threat to his leadership after the May elections. The more you focus on Iran, the more it's in the headlines and the more he's looking like a world leader responding to events.

the safer uh he is because how navel-gazing, how self-indulgent they argue, would it be if we're talking about replacing him with somebody while these really serious scary events are uh underway. That's why I think it's likely that you know, number ten will try and sort of create more visual events to make it onto news bulletins and the papers with Keir Starmer doing stuff, even though critics keep pointing out like there's no there's no real news here.

we've had all these Cobra meetings, business leader meetings, news conferences. As Nick says, without really much news being created, because the other other sort of side of the coin is they do do not want to frustrate the Americans and they're trying to keep that relationship going, even though they've been sort of dodging uh brick bats and um insults from from the White House.

So Joe, I was presenting News Night on Friday night and I can sort of monitor your work activity and I could see that you were I could see that you were very, very busy uh with this news that was first broken in the Times. that the Chagos deal has basically been shelved. It has, yes. And maybe not a entirely a coincidence that that news was announced before MPs get back, uh, from their Easter recess when opposition parties could call an urgent question. There does seem to be

A view within government that they wanted the narrative around this to be about, look, it's unfortunate, this is not what we wanted to happen. We still want that deal to go ahead, but we couldn't do it without US support. What they don't want, I think, to focus on too much. is what both the Conservatives and Reform have been saying.

Which is that look, we played a part, we've won here, it's our victory because we've been campaigning domestically. But also there are uh conservative politicians like Ian Duncan Smith, the former party leader, uh reform leader Nigel Farage, who's saying to me he's been um talking to various people in the White House about this for for months who who wanna uh claim credit. And I think it's really important uh to explain why this, why Chagos matters.

And the best example is this Iran war, is this conflict. Uh the i it of course was far easier for the US to launch uh bombing missions from Chagos and from Fairford in Gloucestershire, which is the the Americans uh base for uh heavy bombers in Europe than it would be from Missouri or Louisiana or North Dakota where they have other RAF bases. This is a hugely strategically important

Um base. That of course is why the UK government want this deal with Mauritius, because they think the best way to preserve it, to hand it to Mauritius. Let me just explain. It's the British Indian Ocean Overseas Territory. At the heart of that is this massive base, Diego Garcia, which is currently in UK hands, but used by the United States, hugely strategically significant.

The UK government is there is legal uncertainty over the sovereignty of this because Mauritius is saying it's ours. So what the UK proposes is you hand Sovereignty to Mauritius, but then the UK leases the Chagos Islands back for ninety nine years and the base Fantastic. Continue functioning. That's basically the Very well, very, very well explained, Nick. I I think th the view in government is that this deal is still sort of in the ether, like maybe it can be brought back at some stage.

But it's not gonna be uh the legislation is not gonna be passed this uh session before prorogation and it's not gonna be uh in the King's speech in the middle of next month. Therefore it could be brought back in the next parliamentary section session so the next year or so. But it's not something that is is going to be uh imminent. And of course the hope of

some opposition parties i is that it is completely dead and they have been uh using this moment to distill their criticism of of of Kirstarmer. Can we be knocked saying it's another indictment of a Prime Minister Uh the Lib Dem saying it's shambolic, reform saying it's a shabby saga, it clearly has been embarrassing. Some would argue it's humiliating. Trump did like did did say publicly he thought the deal was okay last year, didn't he?

And of course that was one of the successes of the initial Oval Office meeting of of Keir Starmer that you thought, Oh, we've got him on side and and even more recently the State Department seemed to be uh more on side.

Why did Donald Trump change his mind? UK opposition party, some of them think their involvement was key. Others think, well, it's it's sort of revenge for the fact that Keir Starmer refused access to US um Air Force to Fairford in Gloucestershire and to the Chagos to launch these offensive strikes. I mean Ben Judah, who until relatively recently was special advisor to David Lamy and obviously when he was Foreign Secretary

says that the Joe Biden administration pleaded with the UK to do this deal because they wanted total certainty over the legal status of the Diego Garcia base. And when The Trump administration came in, the view of David Lamy was: we have to have the support of the new administration. And they were absolutely confident that what they described as

the US deep state. Either military thought this was the best way of preserving that base, and that was the view of Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State. It was the view of Donald Trump until, as Joe say, uh the events unfolded as they did. He's changed his mind, but of course it's possible, Vic, that the President changes his mind on this again. Hundred percent. This is what the Health Secretary West Reating said about Well we said all the way along, we wouldn't proceed without American support.

Uh taking a step back, both our predecessors in the Conservatives and this government have had one objective in mind, which is how do we secure the Chagos Islands? for the long term because it's vital to our national security, it's vital for America and in terms of our collective security it's essential too. Okay. And we want to make sure that it is secure for the long term. The Americans agree with that objective.

We'll work through with Washington to iron out some of the difficulties. We will be in the right position. The UK government hasn't changed its position, but we need to take the Americans with us.

Every week there is something to test the UK US relationship at the moment, isn't there? The special relationship is currently the especially difficult special relationship. And what is interesting is that, you know, Keir Starmer made a really big decision, which was to say no to taking part in offensive operations uh in this. I mean, you've got to go back to sort of

Ted Heath having a difficult relationship with Richard Nixon. You've got to go back to Harold Wilson saying, No, we're not going to be taking part in the Vietnam War. to see a UK Prime Minister so publicly and consistently saying no. There've been disagreements, there've been arguments. To to do something like that is a big moment. And what is interesting

To pick up on what Joe was saying is that last week we had the local party election broadcast for the Labour Party, barely a word about councils. It was all about the decision that Keir Starmer's made here, because he thinks this could remake and save his premiership. Okay. What should newscasters be looking out for next week? Parliament is back.

It is. I think uh I I'm not sure this uh meeting of political directors, top civil servants of the forty countries involved in what were last week Yvette Cooper talk, I'm not sure that will be hugely significant but that's gonna be happening at the start of the week. And I think if I was an opposition party, I might uh want to haul uh a minister if they're not coming anyway uh to Parliament.

to explain what's happening with Chagos. And certainly for reform and the Conservatives, they want to get more publicity for their argument that this is a UK government failure and that it has been mishandled from the start by Kirst Armer and the Foreign Office. imagine a whole bunch of either urgent questions in the commons tomorrow or statements. One of the things they'll pick up on is what you were talking uh to Wes Streeting about Vic, which is the government is saying that it's increasing.

uh defence spending, but where is the defence investment plan? Looks like we might be getting that at the end of May. That's the we are gonna spend this money and this is how we're gonna spend it. But I should tell you Just looking ahead to this week, there's one thing that's happening right now that could be of enormous significance, which is the elections in Hungary. Oh yes. Now Victor Orban who has this

Quite interesting accolade of being the favourite European leader of both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Fancy that. He's liked by both of them. He has been in power continuously for sixteen years. And if the opinion polls are to be believed, and as we always say, Vic,

There's only one poll that matters, and that's happening right now in Hungary. If they're to be believed, then Peter Magyar, who's the main opposition leader, double digit lead, may win, may become Prime Minister. Interestingly, Peter Magyar is a former ally of Victor Auburn. He is also quite conservative. He is of that ilk, but he has split with Victor Orban and he's saying, let's focus on the cost of living. Let's focus on what he calls corruption of the Orban regime.

Let's not take the Orban approach of saying everything in Hungary is the fault of Brussels and Kyiv. So it's a big moment if power changes hands in Hungary, a big moment for Europe and also a big moment beyond that potentially for Ukraine. So look, uh, if we think about where we go from now, what's gonna happen? How many Israeli attacks are are there on Lebanon and what does that mean? Because Iran has said that there needs to be a ceasefire in Lebanon.

But also what happens in Iran? Does diplomacy keep going, or do we see more violence? Thank you for having us this weekend. Yeah, really appreciate your company. And Adam is back tomorrow. That's it from us. Goodbye. Newscast from the BBC. From one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze.

Stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know, and don't forget you can email us anytime at newscast at bbc.co.uk or if you're that way inclined. Send us a WhatsApp on plus four four zero three three zero one two three nine four eight. Be assured, I promise, we listen to everyone.