The US push to start talks with Iran have hit a snag just two days after the signing of an agreement that opens a 60-day window to negotiate a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme while getting oil traffic moving again at pre-war levels through the Strait of Hormuz.
American vice president JD Vance had been prepared to make an overnight flight on Friday to meet with his Iranian counterparts at a mountainside resort in the tiny Swiss village of Obbürgen and begin the technical talks.
His staff and a small pack of journalists had even gathered at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington in anticipation of the trip.
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Meanwhile, dozens of White House officials, advance staffers and more media gathered in Switzerland to prepare for Mr Vance’s anticipated arrival.
But then, the trip was abruptly called off on Thursday evening – for the time being.
The White House issued a statement, explaining Mr Vance – who has been tasked with leading the negotiations by US president Donald Trump – and his delegation were prepared for talks, but they were unable to finalise plans, and Mr Vance will remain in Washington.
“The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,” the statement noted.
The announcement followed a report from Al-Mayadeen, a Pan-Arab satellite channel that is politically allied with the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, that Iran was delaying sending its delegation to Switzerland over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Lebanon.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military will stay in a “security zone” of southern Lebanon as long as “Israel’s security needs require it”.
Israel and Hezbollah are not parties to the agreement. Iran insists Israel must withdraw from the large section of southern Lebanon it is occupying, but the wording of the interim deal does not explicitly require that and only ensures Lebanon’s “territorial integrity”.
Hours before postponing his trip, Mr Vance gave some indication of the state of flux when he told reporters at a White House briefing that he was uncertain if the talks were going to happen this weekend.
“Our plan is to go to Switzerland, I don’t know exactly when,” Mr Vance told reporters.
“We think these technical negotiations start sometime this weekend. That’s still the plan. But that could change.”
Soon after Mr Vance spoke to reporters, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei endorsed direct negotiations with the US in a terse statement read by state media that appeared to signal to the Islamic Republic’s leadership that it could move forward with a first round of talks.
“It is obvious that the face-to-face negotiations that will be held in the future will not mean accepting the enemy’s opinion,” Khamenei said in his statement.
The messaging seemed to give Khamenei, who was badly injured in the February 28 US strike that killed his father, some room for manoeuvre.
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Hard-liners in the Iranian government, including Khamenei’s father, have long opposed direct talks with the White House, especially after Mr Trump, during his first term, pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by Democratic president Barack Obama’s administration.
More importantly for the White House, it appeared to create a permission structure for the talks to start.
Mr Vance was initially expected to go to Switzerland to sign the agreement at a formal ceremony. Instead, Mr Trump signed the document Wednesday during a glitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles with French leader Emmanuel Macron, and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian separately signed the agreement.
The agreement states that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under rubble left by US military strikes last year targeting Tehran’s key nuclear sites, must at minimum be diluted under international supervision.
It also states that Iran shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons – a commitment it has made previously. But a range of other commitments remain to be worked out.
Iranians would be going into the talks with a measure of confidence after effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, causing global economic reverberations, said Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East programme at Defence Priorities in Washington.
She said the US is now “essentially trying to negotiate our way back to the pre-war status quo”.
