The Iran peace talks that didn’t happen
The Global Story
BBC
3.8 • 663 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why were scheduled talks between the US and Iran suddenly cancelled? On Tuesday, as US vice president JD Vance was due to be flying to Pakistan for mediated talks on ending the war in Iran, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he was extending the ceasefire agreement, but that the US will continue to block Iranian ports.
Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane through which 20% of the world’s oil, as well as critical supplies of gas, aluminium and fertiliser is transported, remains a flashpoint, with Iran attacking cargo ships attempting to get through.
Today, we speak to the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams, who is in the capital of Pakistan. Plus, in response to listener demand, we speak to Charlotte Smith, the long-time presenter of the BBC’s Farming Today, about how the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz is affecting the farming and food industries globally.
Producers: Hannah Moore, Lucy Pawle and Valerio Esposito
Executive producers: James Shield and Richard Fenton-Smith
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | The Serena Hotel in Islamabad had been scrubbed clean and was ready for its big moment. |
| 0:12.0 | The regular guests had been kicked out. |
| 0:13.8 | Everything was set to welcome a US delegation and an Iranian delegation for peace talks to end the war. |
| 0:20.2 | For 48 hours, there'd been on again, off again speculation about whether Vice President |
| 0:26.7 | J.D. Vance would take off for Pakistan. It was happening, quote, soon, and then it didn't, and then |
| 0:33.7 | silence. There was almost no news from Tehran about the delegation that Vance was supposed to meet with |
| 0:41.3 | until late Tuesday Donald Trump posted on social media that the two-week ceasefire with Iran |
| 0:48.6 | would be extended with no end date given. |
| 0:52.3 | And the blockade of Iranian ports would continue. |
| 0:56.1 | And so this meant the talks were off indefinitely. |
| 0:59.8 | Was this all a power play, a failure of diplomacy, |
| 1:03.3 | or just diplomacy, merely on pause? |
| 1:06.9 | Both Iran and the United States seem to think that they can dictate the terms of this standoff. |
| 1:12.7 | From the BBC in London, I'm Tristan Redmond. |
| 1:15.6 | And I'm Asma Khalid. |
| 1:17.2 | And today on the global story, the negotiations that never happened. |
| 1:35.4 | Today on the show, we're going to kick things off by speaking with the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams, who's joining us from Islamabad in Pakistan. |
| 1:47.2 | And after that, we're going to give you something special. You, our listeners, have been contacting us about one subject more than any other. And after we hear from Paul, we're going to tell you about it. Well, Paul, you're there in Islamabad, Pakistan. |
| 1:53.3 | There were supposed to be these talks between the Americans and the Iranians. And as we all know, |
| 2:00.0 | those talks didn't materialize as of this point. |
| 2:03.6 | And so it kind of feels like you're at a party where the guests of honor never showed up. |
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