US Vice President JD Vance said pressure on Iran will continue unless Tehran agrees to make long-term changes aimed at improving relations with Washington. In an interview with Fox News on Saturday, Vance said the United States was assessing whether Iran was prepared to make the changes needed for better relations between the two countries.

Vance said the United States had substantially weakened Iran’s nuclear and conventional military capabilities. He also said that Washington had destroyed Iran’s nuclear programme and its conventional military capacity.

If Iran does not want to improve relations, the United States will keep applying as much pressure as it can, Vance said. He added that the United States would seek to extract as much oil and gas as possible from the Middle East so that American citizens could obtain gas and energy at lower prices.