Top negotiators for the U.S. and Iran wrapped up the latest round of peace talks in Switzerland Monday morning. Now, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei says technical talks have begun under the framework of the memorandum of understanding, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
Baqaei told IRNA that Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs is leading Iran’s side of the technical negotiations.
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According to a joint statement issued by mediators Qatar and Pakistan, the technical working groups will focus on nuclear issues, sanctions, monitoring mechanisms and dispute-resolution procedures. Negotiations are set to continue in Switzerland through the end of this week.
Vice President JD Vance, who led the U.S. delegation, said on Monday they’d made “good progress” in the talks. He called the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has been marring negotiations a “bit of a chicken-and-egg problem,” and said some of the strikes make have been launched without proper orders.
But he said Tehran and Washington have come up with a way to avoid that in the future.
“Israel and every other nation in the region has the right to self-defense, but we want to make sure that everybody has that right to self-defense in the background where we’re talking about how to de-escalate these conflicts rather than spiraling out of control,” Vance said. “Sometimes what will happen is that if the conflict spirals out of control, that’s worse for everybody’s self-defense and worse for everybody’s security. So we’ve actually got the process in place to ensure that escalation doesn’t happen.”
He did not explain what that process consists of.
Iran’s foreign minister says sanctions on Iranian oil have been waived, some of its frozen assets released and “a major reconstruction and development plan for Iran has been launched.”
Over the weekend, both the U.S. and Iran also agreed to the creation of a de-confliction cell to make sure military operations are terminated in Lebanon.
“Tireless Pakistani and Qatari mediation has delivered major progress to end Lebanon War,” Iranian Foreign Minister and negotiator Abbas Araghchi said on X Sunday. “Oil and petrochem exports are waived, blockade lifted, some frozen assets released, and major reconstruction & development plan launched for Iran.”
He said Lebanon will be “the first real test.”
Debate over the Strait of Hormuz
These talks come days after the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a 60-day ceasefire. Key parts of that memorandum include the “immediate termination” of military operations on all fronts between the U.S. and Iran, as well as in Lebanon, and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.
However, Iran said on Saturday it again closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli strikes against Lebanon. The U.S., though, maintains that it’s still open.
President Donald Trump, speaking to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, said the U.S. may take over the Strait of Hormuz and collect tolls. This would ultimately involve the U.S. taking 20% of the oil passing through the strait, Trump said, according to Yingst.
In an overnight conversation with Iranian officials, Trump addressed the Strait of Hormuz, Yingst said, telling them: “You close it, and you won’t have a country. You won’t even make it back to your f—ing country.”
Iranian state-run media reported that Iran lodged a protest with the U.S. side, and is “now weighing options for an appropriate response to Donald Trump’s recent verbal threats.”
“Don’t they ever think to themselves that if their threats had actually worked, they wouldn’t have reached this level of desperation today?” Iran’s Speaker of the Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on X. “We don’t take the Americans’ threats seriously at all. They had better watch their words carefully. Our armed forces are ready to give them a response in a different way. No matter how much they talk, it is we who take action.”
The US wants a ceasefire
Before the talks began on Sunday, Vance said Trump asked the U.S. delegation in Switzerland to “extend an outstretched hand that says to the people of Iran that if your leadership is willing to give up being a driver of regional instability, if they are willing to give up nuclear weapons ambitions for the long term, then the United States is willing to fundamentally transform our relationship with that country.”
Vance is in Switzerland with Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s adviser and son-in-law. Meanwhile, the Iranian delegation includes Ghalibaf and Araghchi.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was also in Bürgenstock Sunday as discussions continue over Iran’s nuclear program. He said on X he was there to “take stock of recent developments regarding Iran, the path ahead and the important role of the IAEA.”
“At this critical moment, it’s important to give diplomacy every opportunity to succeed,” Grossi said. “Thanks to Switzerland for its longstanding support of the Agency and its commitment to multilateral diplomacy.”
On Sunday, Vance said the president “has committed us to see a full regional ceasefire.”
“We’re all working towards regional peace,” Vance said. “There, of course, are going to be sometimes disagreements about precisely how to get there, but I actually feel great about where we are in Lebanon.”
Israel says its not biund by memorandum
Officials in Israel, though, have said they don’t feel bound by the U.S. memorandum.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said his country’s main focus in negotiations Sunday was the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, The Associated Press reported.
Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaie, Iran’s deputy of communications and information dissemination of the President’s Office, said on Sunday that Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon “will lead to the invalidation of the entire agreement.”
“The first directive of the negotiating delegation in Switzerland is to end the aggression in Lebanon,” he said. “When the first condition of the agreement is not implemented, there can be no trust in the implementation of the rest of its provisions either.”
Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem said Israel “will not remain in Lebanon no matter how much it increases its criminality,” and called on the Lebanese authority to take advantage of the memorandum of understanding.
He added that any ceasefire violations by Israel will be “confronted, and the resistance will deal with any aggression as it sees fit.”
Trump, on Truth Social, blamed Iran for the hostilities in Lebanon.
“Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” he said. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
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