The Latest: Vance and Iranian negotiators are in Switzerland to work on deal’s details

Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

U.S. and Iran­ian ne­go­tia­tors were in Switzer­land on Sun­day for talks on their in­ter­im agree­ment to end the Iran war. Pak­istani and Qatari me­di­a­tors al­so were there for the tech­ni­cal-lev­el dis­cus­sions on re­solv­ing the con­flict that the U.S. and Is­rael be­gan in late Feb­ru­ary.

The U.S. team is led by Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance and in­cludes Jared Kush­n­er and Steve Witkoff. They are meet­ing with Iran­ian ne­go­tia­tors led by Par­lia­ment Speak­er Mo­ham­mad Bagher Qal­ibaf and For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi.

On the eve of talks, Tehran said it closed the Strait of Hor­muz again over Is­rael’s on­go­ing mil­i­tary cam­paign in Lebanon. The in­ter­im deal is meant to stop fight­ing on all fronts, in­clud­ing Lebanon.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has threat­ened to im­pose Amer­i­can tolls in the strait if a fi­nal deal with Iran isn’t reached in 60 days. The in­ter­im agree­ment calls for toll-free trav­el for 60 days in the wa­ter­way that is vi­tal for the world’s sup­ply of oil, nat­ur­al gas and re­lat­ed goods like fer­til­iz­er.

Here is the lat­est:

Is­rael’s pres­i­dent says Iran com­pli­cates peace deal with Lebanon

Is­raeli Pres­i­dent Isaac Her­zog told Fox News that a peace agree­ment be­tween Is­rael and Lebanon can­not be reached if Iran is “try­ing to squeeze them­selves in­to this con­flict” via the Iran­ian-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group.

Her­zog’s po­si­tion is large­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al. He said Is­rael and Lebanon will hold an­oth­er round of talks in Wash­ing­ton on Tues­day. Hezbol­lah is not a par­ty to the talks.

Iran wants any agree­ment with the U.S. to in­clude peace on all fronts in­clud­ing Lebanon. It has said Lebanon will be a fo­cus in to­day’s talks in Switzer­land.

Iran’s pres­i­dent wor­ries about street protests

Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Ma­soud Pezeshkian has ex­pressed con­cern that some Ira­ni­ans could open­ly protest again. He said in a speech re­port­ed by se­mi-of­fi­cial news out­lets that “what I fear is that we may fail to sat­is­fy the peo­ple, and that they may come out in­to the streets to protest,” which could af­fect the coun­try’s uni­ty dur­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with the U.S.

Iran saw na­tion­wide protests weeks be­fore the war be­gan as un­rest over the weak econ­o­my turned in­to an­ti-gov­ern­ment anger. Thou­sands of peo­ple were killed in the crack­down that fol­lowed, the blood­i­est since Iran’s 1979 Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion. For a while, the U.S. and Is­rael men­tioned regime change in Iran among their war goals.

U.S. en­er­gy sec­re­tary says ships still pass through the strait

U.S. En­er­gy Sec­re­tary Chris Wright says 67 ships went through the Strait of Hor­muz in the last 24 hours, sim­i­lar to traf­fic be­fore the war be­gan in terms of oil and oil prod­ucts.

Iran’s joint mil­i­tary com­mand on Sat­ur­day said it had closed the strait over Is­rael’s mil­i­tary cam­paign in Lebanon against the Iran­ian-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group. The U.S. dis­put­ed that an­nounce­ment.

Wright al­so told Fox News that Iran has not yet “dem­ined” the strait’s cen­tral ship­ping chan­nel, but the U.S. has opened a sep­a­rate chan­nel to the south and has been es­cort­ing ships through it.

Wright ac­knowl­edged that some com­mer­cial ship­pers still have safe­ty con­cerns.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary stands by for re­new­al of com­bat

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary is­sued a state­ment around the time that di­rect talks be­gan. Its chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Za­mir, was speak­ing from south­ern Lebanon. He said “the cease­fire that has been de­clared is frag­ile, and we must main­tain a high lev­el of readi­ness for the re­new­al of com­bat op­er­a­tions.”

He said the mil­i­tary con­tin­ues to de­fend against the Iran­ian-backed Hezbol­lah and its ef­forts to re­build.

Pre­vi­ous talks be­tween Vance and Iran­ian of­fi­cials last­ed near­ly a day

The last time that Vance met di­rect­ly with se­nior Iran­ian of­fi­cials for such talks was in ear­ly April, days af­ter a cease­fire took ef­fect in the war. Those talks in Pak­istan’s cap­i­tal of Is­lam­abad end­ed af­ter 21 hours with­out reach­ing an agree­ment. Again, Vance was meet­ing with lead ne­go­tia­tor Qal­ibaf.

It’s now af­ter 4 p.m. in Switzer­land.

Di­rect U.S.-Iran talks have be­gun in Switzer­land

Both Iran and the White House say four-way talks have be­gun in Switzer­land. Vance is meet­ing with Iran­ian of­fi­cials.

Trump hopes to get the agree­ment signed last week back on track. Is­rael’s on­go­ing mil­i­tary cam­paign in Lebanon against the Iran­ian-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group threat­ens progress on im­ple­men­ta­tion.

Iran says its main fo­cus in these talks is the sit­u­a­tion in Lebanon. Is­rael says it must de­fend it­self from Hezbol­lah. But the U.S. side wants to get Iran locked in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions over its nu­clear pro­gram, which has long been at the heart of ten­sions.

Trump warns Iran about Hezbol­lah

Trump has warned in a post on so­cial me­dia that Iran needs to stop Hezbol­lah from “caus­ing trou­ble.”

“If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, on­ly hard­er!!!” Trump wrote from Camp David, where he is spend­ing the week­end.

Vance says that the Mideast is at a turn­ing point

The U.S. vice pres­i­dent spoke as of­fi­cials were gath­er­ing for the start of the U.S.-Iran talks on Sun­day.

“The ques­tion be­fore us now is how much more can we ac­com­plish to­geth­er? Can we turn over a new leaf?” Vance said in brief com­ments ahead of the talks, dubbed the “Lake Lucerne Sum­mit.”

“Can we change re­la­tions in the Mid­dle East per­ma­nent­ly, or do we go back to do­ing things the old way, which is not our pref­er­ence, but is cer­tain­ly very much some­thing that can hap­pen,” Vance added.

It was not clear if the Ira­ni­ans were present dur­ing Vance’s re­marks.

Is­rael says it killed 2 mil­i­tants in Gaza in­volved in Hamas’ fi­nan­cial arm

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary says it killed two mil­i­tants who were in­volved in help­ing trans­fer up to half a bil­lion dol­lars to Hamas. The mil­i­tary says the two — Hus­sein Qadra and Mo­hammed Far­ra, who worked with Hamas and the mil­i­tant group Pales­tin­ian Is­lam­ic Ji­had — were killed in a strike last week.

It said on Sun­day that the men over­saw a net­work of couri­ers and mon­ey ex­change spots in both Gaza and Turkey that fun­nelled mon­ey to­wards Hamas mil­i­tants and in­fra­struc­ture.

Both men were killed on Wednes­day and buried on Thurs­day, ac­cord­ing to their fam­i­lies. Far­ra’s fam­i­ly said his fa­ther, moth­er and sis­ter were killed in an Is­raeli strike ear­li­er in the war.

The con­flict in Gaza is not part of the U.S-Iran talks un­der­way in Switzer­land.

Pak­istani team meets sep­a­rate­ly with US, Iran­ian del­e­ga­tions

Pak­istan’s Prime Min­is­ter She­hbaz Sharif has sep­a­rate­ly met with JD Vance and with the Iran­ian del­e­ga­tion at the Bür­gen­stock Re­sort near Lucerne in Switzer­land where the high-lev­el talks are tak­ing place.

Is­lam­abad says Pak­istan’s army chief, Field Mar­shal Asim Mu­nir, ac­com­pa­nied Sharif at the meet­ings. It did not pro­vide fur­ther de­tails.

Sharif has re­peat­ed­ly said Mu­nir played a key role in bro­ker­ing the mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing be­tween the U.S. and Iran.

A video re­leased by Sharif’s of­fice shows him warm­ly em­brac­ing Qal­ibaf, Iran’s par­lia­ment speak­er, and Araghchi, Iran’s for­eign min­is­ter, as Mu­nir looks on.

The head of the UN nu­clear watch­dog is al­so at the scene of the talks

Rafael Grossi, chief of the U.N. nu­clear watch­dog — the In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­er­gy Agency — met with Swiss For­eign Min­is­ter Ig­nazio Cas­sis on the side­lines of the gath­er­ing at the pic­turesque moun­tain­side re­sort near Lake Lucerne on Sun­day morn­ing.

The agency had mon­i­tored the 2015 nu­clear deal ne­go­ti­at­ed be­tween the U.S. and Iran un­der the Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Trump in 2018 with­drew the U.S. from that agree­ment.

Talks in Switzer­land will fo­cus on the Is­rael-Hezbol­lah war, Iran says

Iran’s For­eign Min­istry spokesman Es­mail Baghaei says Tehran will main­ly fo­cus dur­ing the talks on Sun­day on the on­go­ing fight­ing in Lebanon.

Tehran in­sists that the deal’s im­ple­men­ta­tion start with a ces­sa­tion of all fight­ing — in­clud­ing be­tween Is­rael and Hezbol­lah.

Baghaei said the U.S. “has been un­able or un­will­ing” to hold Is­rael to the cease­fire.

Iran will meet in the morn­ing with Pak­istani and Qatari me­di­a­tors, and in the af­ter­noon, there will be a four-way meet­ing in­clud­ing the U.S. ne­go­ti­at­ing team. There is cur­rent­ly on­ly one day of ne­go­ti­a­tions planned, Baghaei told the state news agency.

“The im­ple­men­ta­tion of any doc­u­ment is more im­por­tant than its sign­ing,” Baghaei al­so said Sun­day.

Iran’s pres­i­dent has said that Iran will main­tain its right to a nu­clear pro­gram.

“What is cer­tain is that we will nev­er back down from the right to en­rich ura­ni­um, and the oth­er side is al­so forced to ac­cept it,” Ma­soud Pezeshkian said on Sun­day, ac­cord­ing to state me­dia.

A tem­po­rary lull in Is­raeli strikes in Lebanon

As the U.S.-Iran talks were to kick off in Switzer­land, a cease­fire ap­pears to be hold­ing in Lebanon, a lull that came af­ter an­oth­er day of heavy fight­ing.

Since the cease­fire, Is­raeli strikes on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day killed 97 peo­ple, in­clud­ing eight women and four chil­dren, Lebanese of­fi­cials said. Five Is­raeli sol­diers were al­so killed.

Is­rael says it tar­get­ed Hezbol­lah in­fra­struc­ture on Sat­ur­day, in­clud­ing a tun­nel net­work in the south­ern Lebanese town of Kfar Teb­nit.

But by Sun­day morn­ing, res­i­dents in south­ern Lebanon re­port­ed a lull in Is­raeli strikes. There al­so were no re­ports of Hezbol­lah fire from the Is­raeli side.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary has re­ceived in­struc­tions to up­hold the cease­fire, and said it is on­ly act­ing de­fen­sive­ly, ac­cord­ing to an Is­raeli mil­i­tary of­fi­cial who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty in line with mil­i­tary guide­lines.

—Melanie Lid­man in Tel Aviv, Is­rael

Pak­istani me­di­a­tors al­so in place in Switzer­land

Pak­istani Prime Min­is­ter She­hbaz Sharif and army chief Field Mar­shal Asim Mu­nir are al­so in Switzer­land for the high-lev­el U.S.-Iran talks, the prime min­is­ter’s of­fice said with­out pro­vid­ing fur­ther de­tails.

The tech­ni­cal-lev­el talks at Bür­gen­stock Re­sort near the Swiss city of Lucerne are be­ing held af­ter Sharif dis­patched his spe­cial en­voy, In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Mohsin Naqvi, to Tehran to per­suade Iran­ian au­thor­i­ties to send a del­e­ga­tion to Switzer­land. The meet­ing was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Fri­day but was de­layed be­cause of con­cerns raised by Iran.

Naqvi lat­er in­formed Is­lam­abad that Iran was will­ing to at­tend the talks. Pak­istan sub­se­quent­ly con­veyed the de­vel­op­ment to Wash­ing­ton.

Strait of Hor­muz is once again a chal­lenge

The strait has emerged as a key fo­cus, with Iran’s joint mil­i­tary com­mand say­ing on Sat­ur­day that it was closed again be­cause of the U.S. “clear breach of its com­mit­ments” by fail­ing to end the war. The in­ter­im deal is meant to stop fight­ing on all fronts, in­clud­ing in Lebanon where Is­raeli forces are bat­tling the mil­i­tant Hezbol­lah group.

The U.S. dis­put­ed Iran’s an­nounce­ment, with the U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand say­ing that traf­fic con­tin­ues to flow and that 55 mer­chant ships tran­sit­ed on Sat­ur­day with more than 17 mil­lion bar­rels of oil.

Ships be­gan tran­sit­ing af­ter the in­ter­im U.S.-Iran agree­ment was signed last week. The U.S. lift­ed its block­ade of Iran’s ports and now al­lows Tehran to sell its oil freely — terms that have left some in U.S. Con­gress ask­ing whether the war was worth it.

The in­ter­im deal signed by Trump and Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Ma­soud Pezeshkian gives ne­go­tia­tors 60 days to reach a nu­clear agree­ment, but the time can be ex­tend­ed. —(AP)