US, Iran Launch High-Stakes Nuclear Talks as Tehran Threatens Global Oil Lifeline

US, Iran Launch High-Stakes Nuclear Talks as Tehran Threatens Global Oil Lifeline

A new round of negotiations over the Middle East war is set to kick off Sunday as Iranian negotiators and US Vice President JD Vance arrived in the Swiss host city, even as Tehran said it was closing the Strait of Hormuz again over Israeli attacks in Lebanon. The talks, scheduled to take place in the Swiss resort town of Burgenstock, are meant to open a two-month negotiation period on issues left unresolved by the initial accord, notably Iran’s nuclear programme. Pakistani and Qatari mediators are also expected to participate, with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir traveling to Switzerland for the discussions. Mediator Pakistan confirmed that technical-level talks were scheduled for Sunday.

Before boarding his flight to Europe, Vance told reporters he hoped to “make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue. Those are the two big things that I think we’re going to be focused on”. US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were already on the ground handling technical elements and had reported that “things are going well,” Vance said. However, Vance also acknowledged he could only stay for “a day or two,” raising questions about the depth of US engagement in the complex negotiations ahead.

Follow-up talks had been planned in Switzerland on Friday but were postponed at the last minute after Israel launched deadly strikes in Lebanon following the deaths of four of its soldiers in combat. Washington announced a renewed ceasefire there later Friday—a condition of its preliminary agreement with Iran—but Israeli troops clashed again with Hezbollah fighters on Saturday, with each side accusing the other of breaking the truce. An Israeli military official said the military had received updated directives from the political leadership to cease fire, adding that troops were operating defensively inside a security zone and were “not conducting proactive strikes”.

Citing a US “breach of contract” and “the Zionist regime’s continuous and relentless violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon,” Iran’s central military command announced that “the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to vessel traffic”. The Iranian military accused the US of violating the first clause of their 14-point memorandum of understanding, which agrees to “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon”. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the strait closed on Saturday, with state-controlled media reporting the IRGC Navy warned all vessels to refrain from any movement until further notice.

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Hormuz, a key conduit for oil and gas shipments, was blockaded by Iran for much of the war, sending shockwaves through global energy markets. Tehran had agreed to reopen it under the preliminary accord signed by US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, and shipping traffic had begun to recover. The agreement calls for toll-free travel during the 60-day negotiation period.

US Central Command strongly disputed Iran’s announcement, with spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins stating that “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz” and that “traffic continues to flow”. The US military said 55 merchant ships transited the strait on Saturday with more than 17 million barrels of oil for global markets, and confirmed that US forces were monitoring the situation to ensure commercial traffic continued. Vance suggested that Iran may have been directing vessels away from naval mines, noting the memorandum includes a 30-day period for mine-clearing operations.

Trump later warned that Washington could impose its own tolls on Hormuz if negotiators failed to complete the deal within the 60-day window. “There would be no tolls unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that the money would be for “services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East”. The threat underscored the fragility of the agreement and the high stakes involved in the Switzerland negotiations.

An Iranian delegation arrived in Switzerland late Saturday, state media and the Swiss foreign ministry said. Iran’s official broadcaster reported that the delegation included parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, along with central bank and oil officials, reflecting the economic dimensions of the negotiations. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the delegation would “demand implementation of the other party’s commitments” under the deal, warning that “otherwise, the entire understanding will be in trouble”. Baqaei told state TV that negotiations toward a final agreement would begin once key commitments are upheld.

Israel and Hezbollah continued trading accusations Saturday as fighting persisted in southern Lebanon, threatening to derail the broader US-Iran agreement. The Israeli military said one soldier was killed in combat, the fifth such fatality since the US-Iran deal was reached. An Israeli military official said Hezbollah launched more than 50 projectiles at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon overnight, prompting Israeli strikes on what the official described as “Hezbollah targets”. Lebanese state media reported Israeli air raids on around 20 locations, with authorities counting more than 30 dead. One of the deadliest strikes hit a three-storey residential building in the southern town of Barish, killing a father, mother and their two children, a local official said.

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Hezbollah accused Israel of carrying out “under the cover of the ceasefire… an infiltration attempt towards the Ali Taher hills,” a strategic feature overlooking Nabatieh, and said its fighters had responded “with appropriate weapons”. The Lebanese army said an Israeli strike killed a soldier on the Kfarrumman-Nabatieh road, and NNA reported that an airstrike destroyed the Nabatieh branch of Lebanon’s central bank. Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said his group retained “the full right to confront this enemy when it attacks us” and warned that continued Israeli attacks “will not pass without a response”. A Hezbollah official told the BBC the group does not recognize the ceasefire that was announced by US officials on Friday and rejects the Israeli objective to operate freely inside Lebanon.

Israel’s US ambassador Yechiel Leiter maintained it was Hezbollah that broke the truce, saying Israel was “defending itself against terrorist attacks”. But Hezbollah said Israel bore “full responsibility” for the ongoing violence. The overall death toll from the fighting in Lebanon had surpassed 4,000, the health ministry said, while Israeli authorities report at least 32 soldiers and four civilians killed.

Fadi Zayat, who fled the southern Lebanon town of Tayr Debba, told AFP that “fear dominates” the south. “We returned to the village a few days ago, but our bags are ready to flee again,” the 53-year-old said. Many residents had returned to their villages after previous ceasefires and temporary truces, believing the worst of the fighting was behind them.

The preliminary memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran, signed electronically by Presidents Trump and Pezeshkian, established a ceasefire, reopened the Strait of Hormuz, and launched a high-stakes 60-day negotiation period on the most divisive issue between the longtime adversaries: Tehran’s nuclear program. Under the agreement, Iran committed to “downblending” its stockpile of highly enriched uranium under IAEA supervision, which a senior US official called a “significant concession”. However, all technical details must still be ironed out in the negotiations.

The agreement also calls for the US to work “with regional partners to develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least USD $300 billion” for Iran’s reconstruction, though a senior US official said the deal does not commit the US to paying Iran a single cent. The text is opaque and appears to leave the door open for US payments as part of a negotiated settlement.

Experts have expressed skepticism about the feasibility of reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal in just 60 days, noting that the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action took more than 18 months to negotiate. Marc Finaud, a research fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said the timeline “is realistic only if expectations remain modest and the goal is to return to something broadly resembling the JCPOA”. Critics have also questioned whether Trump envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, neither of whom had prior nuclear negotiation experience, can handle the technical complexity of the talks.

Vance has sought to defend the deal, telling Fox News that “if the Iranians are willing to change their ways and stop trying to build a nuclear weapon, stop trying to fund terrorism all over the Middle East, then we are willing to actually fundamentally transform our relationship with them”. He emphasized that “they’re agreeing right now to eliminate the enriched stockpile. And if they don’t get to a point where they agree to stop enriching, then they don’t get the other benefits of the bargain”. The agreement also leaves unresolved other issues of concern to Arab countries, Israel, Europe and the United States, including Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for militant proxies in the region.

The announcements and ongoing fighting indicated a rough start to the talks. Iran’s negotiators had canceled plans to attend the originally scheduled Friday talks because of escalating fighting in Lebanon, and it took a personal intervention by one of Pakistan’s top mediators, who flew to Tehran, to persuade Iranian negotiators to reconsider and travel to Switzerland. A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press that Iran informed the militant group that Tehran won’t reopen the strait until Israel announces publicly that it will comply with a “comprehensive ceasefire” in Lebanon and an end to military operations there. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah are signatories to the deal between the US and Iran, complicating enforcement and raising questions about whether the agreement can hold. US officials fear that continuing tensions between Israel and Lebanon could undermine the entire US peace deal with Iran.

The 60-day deadline can be extended by mutual agreement, suggesting both sides are aware of the challenges ahead. But as Vance himself acknowledged, the US will be watching actions, not words: “I don’t trust anything that anybody says. I trust what people do. And the way this deal is structured is that as they do more, they receive more. As they do less, they receive less”.

US, Iran Launch High-Stakes Nuclear Talks as Tehran Threatens Global Oil Lifeline