Through much of Thursday, Switzerland was preparing for what promised to be a moment of clarity in a muddied week of efforts to end the war in Iran. Swiss officials were readying a luxury lakeside resort for crucial new negotiations to flesh out the preliminary deal. Air Force Two sat on a runway outside Washington, ready to carry Vice President JD Vance there.<\/p>\n
At 3 a.m. on Friday, Swiss time, a message arrived from America: Mr. Vance wasn\u2019t coming. The talks had been shelved, with little explanation and no rescheduling. \u201cThe logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,\u201d a White House statement said. Diplomats later said<\/a> that Iran had pulled out of the talks to protest Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting with the Hezbollah militia, an Iranian ally.<\/p>\n The reversal capped a week of confusion that had already engulfed President Trump\u2019s efforts to seal \u2014 and sell \u2014 an agreement with Iran that was only a few days old. Among the points of confusion:<\/p>\n The exact parameters of the agreement took days to become public, and they remain shrouded in questions. Iranian and American officials are describing them in wildly different terms \u2014 with American leaders insisting the deal included promises that do not appear in its text.<\/p>\n The agreement does not resolve crucial questions about Iran\u2019s nuclear program, or whether the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial maritime trade route off southern Iran, would continue to be open for free passage. It delays those to a second, 60-day negotiating period that has just begun. But talks have been postponed, with no clarity on when they will begin, or what will happen if the questions remain unresolved.<\/p>\n Leaders of the United States and Israel, the countries that started the war together, disagree sharply about the deal. It is unclear if Israel will abide by it, and new confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah, Iran\u2019s ally in Lebanon, already seem to have jeopardized it.<\/p>\n These complications have upended what was meant to be a stabilizing moment for global politics, trade and markets, leaving world leaders wondering aloud about what might happen next.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s regrettable,\u201d Miche\u00e1l Martin, the prime minister of Ireland, told reporters on Friday outside a meeting of European leaders in Belgium. \u201cIt\u2019s in some respects not surprising. But I would urge continued dialogue, adherence to the agreement, because the world needs stability and the world needs peace.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t initially clear when the deal was signed.<\/p>\n The crescendo of confusion began to build on Sunday, when the president announced the deal but did not say immediately what was in it. There were initial discussions of holding a signing ceremony that day, on the shores of Lake Geneva near Switzerland\u2019s western border with France.<\/p>\n On Monday, after the weekend passed without a public signing, Mr. Vance announced that actually the deal had already been signed electronically.<\/p>\n Then on Tuesday, Swiss officials announced the deal would be signed in person after all \u2014 on Friday<\/a>, at the Qatar-owned B\u00fcrgenstock Resort Lake Lucerne, about an hour outside of Zurich.<\/p>\n By Wednesday, Mr. Trump had scuttled that plan, putting ink to paper<\/a> during a dinner at Versailles, outside Paris, after a Group of 7 leaders\u2019 meeting in eastern France. The Trump administration did not clarify whether that document was the same as the one signed digitally on Sunday.<\/p>\n Details emerged slowly, but questions persisted.<\/p>\n The uncertainty was compounded by the fact that it took three days for the Trump administration to share the full text of the deal with the public. In the meantime, the media published unconfirmed reports about it, and American officials, including Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, made ambiguous claims about whether it would provide Iran with financial relief.<\/p>\n