US Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday said that President Donald Trump was still pursuing a diplomatic deal with Iran but remained ‘locked and loaded’ to restart military action if nuclear talks failed.Addressing reporters during a White House briefing, Vance said the Trump administration was continuing negotiations in good faith while making it clear that Iran would never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon.“It takes two to tango,” Vance said.“We are not going to have a deal that allows the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon,” he added, Fox News reported. Quoting Trump, the US Vice President further warned that Washington was prepared to resume military action if diplomacy collapsed.“So as the president just told me, we’re locked and loaded,” Vance said.“We don’t want to go down that pathway. But the president is willing and able to go down that pathway if we have to,” he added.Vance said the administration currently saw two possible outcomes – a negotiated settlement or renewed military action.“We think the Iranians want to make a deal,” he said.“The president of the United States has asked us to negotiate in good faith. And that’s exactly what we’ve done,” he added.However, he stressed that diplomacy would not compromise Washington’s core demand regarding Iran’s nuclear programme.“There’s an option B, and the option B is that we could restart the military campaign to continue to prosecute the case, to continue to try to achieve America’s objectives,” Vance said.“But that’s not what the president wants. And I don’t think it’s what the Iranians want either,” he added.The remarks came a day after Trump said he had paused plans for a major military strike on Iran because talks between the two sides had shown signs of progress.“We were getting ready to do a very major attack, and I put it off for a little while — hopefully maybe forever,” Trump had said at the White House on Monday.“There seems to be a very good chance that they can work something out,” he added.Trump also said he would prefer a diplomatic breakthrough instead of military escalation.“If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I’d be very happy,” the US president said.During Tuesday’s briefing, Vance also rejected suggestions that any future conflict with Iran would become a prolonged military engagement.“This is not a forever war,” he said.“We’re going to take care of business and come home,” he added.The Vice President further said the United States and Iran had made ‘a lot of progress’ in the talks and repeated that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons remained Washington’s main objective.“We want to keep the number of countries that have nuclear weapons small, and that’s why Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.
