George WrightAnd
Toby Mann
Direct talks between the United States and Iran are expected to begin in Switzerland, although the Iranian military says it has closed the Strait of Hormuz again following Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.
Iran also cited the breakdown of its agreement with the United States to end the war as the reason for the shutdown. However, the US military said “traffic continues to flow” across the strait.
US Vice President JD Vance arrived in Switzerland early Sunday morning. The new round of negotiations is expected to begin later today.
An Iranian delegation including Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived on Saturday evening.
U.S. and Iranian officials will be joined at the talks by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the country’s armed forces chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir.
“Pakistan will continue to support the implementation of the agreements between Iran and the United States,” the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement before the negotiations.
Vance said he hoped to make progress “on the nuclear issue” and on the “ceasefire issue in Lebanon.”
Speaking to the press before boarding his flight, he was asked about the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah and Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon. He said: “Things are getting better there and slowing down a bit.”
“This is something that we will have to continually manage to ensure that Israel and Lebanon are both safe and secure. That’s basically the goal of all of this, to make the whole region safe and secure,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said his country would “demand that the other side respect its commitments.”
Earlier this week, the US and Iranian presidents signed a first agreement aimed at ending the war, including in Lebanon, effective immediately. It includes a commitment to continue negotiations to reach a final agreement over the next 60 days.
Complicating the situation are ongoing clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia based in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Lebanese capital.
At least 47 people were killed in Lebanon on Saturday following a series of Israeli airstrikes, the country’s Health Ministry said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it struck 80 Hezbollah-linked targets and killed “dozens” of its members.
The Israeli army says four of its soldiers were also killed.
Israel and Hezbollah have continued to exchange fire since the US-Iran deal was announced, but on Friday afternoon an immediate ceasefire between the two was confirmed.
Before the deal, Israel said it had no plans to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and insisted its conflict with Hezbollah was separate from the war against Iran.
Hezbollah said Israeli attacks in Lebanon were an attempt to “sabotage” the broader US-Iran deal.
The U.S. government has criticized Israel’s ongoing operations in Lebanon, which was drawn into war when Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said 4,057 people had been killed since the resumption of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah on March 2.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Israeli strikes on Lebanon violated the ceasefire communication.
Territorial waters and the Strait of Hormuz, which had been reopened after the United States and Iran reached an agreement to end the war, had been closed.
Justifying its announcement of the closure of the strait, the Iranian military accused the United States of violating the US-Iran agreement by not implementing the first clause. of their 14-point memorandum of understandingwhich accepts “the immediate and definitive cessation of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon”.
However, after Iran’s statement, US Central Command (Centcom) spokesman Tim Hawkins said “traffic continues to flow.” He said US forces were “monitoring the situation to ensure that this remains the case,” adding that “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz.”
Centcom said 55 merchant ships transited the strait on Saturday with more than 17 million barrels of oil destined for global markets.
Iran effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz after the United States and Israel attacked the country on February 28, sending shockwaves through global energy markets.
The strait is deep enough to accommodate the world’s largest oil tankers and is used by the Middle East’s major oil and liquefied natural gas producers and their customers.
By 2025, about 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products would pass through the strait each day, according to estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This represents almost $600 billion (£447 billion) in energy trade per year.