Lebanon<\/a> was pitched into the conflict as Iran-aligned Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, prompting Israel to launch a wide-scale bombing campaign and ground invasion of southern Lebanon.<\/p>\nAfter a series of false starts, Washington and Tehran last week finally signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war, which included a provision to end fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
But there have been repeated clashes and Israeli attacks in Lebanon since, which prompted Iran to say days after it had reopened the Strait of Hormuz that it would again close the waterway, through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies transited before the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cTireless Pakistani and Qatari mediation has delivered major progress to end Lebanon War,\u201d Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X after the talks in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\u201cOil and petrochem exports are waived, blockade lifted, some frozen assets released, and major reconstruction & development plan launched for Iran. 1st real test: Lebanon deconfliction cell,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Resul Serdar Atas, reporting from Tehran, said Iran achieved most of what it wanted in the talks in Switzerland because it had conditions for starting the technical talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were saying that the memorandum of understanding \u2013 particularly Articles 1, 10 and 11 \u2013 had to be initiated and implemented for the technical talks to move forward,\u201d he said, referring to the sections on ending fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon; waiving US sanctions on Iranian energy exports; and releasing frozen Iranian assets.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now that they have decided that technical talks in Switzerland are going to continue throughout the whole week, we see that there is progress,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s threats<\/p>\n
The roadmap was agreed after a shaky start to the negotiations. Iran\u2019s delegation walked out in response to US President Donald Trump\u2019s threats on Sunday to attack Iran over its support for Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,\u201d Trump wrote on social media, apparently referring to Hezbollah. \u201cIf they don\u2019t, we\u2019ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran hit back with a warning of its own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey would do better to be careful with their statements; our armed forces are ready to respond to them in a different manner. No matter what they say, we are the ones who act,\u201d Iran\u2019s chief negotiator, Ghalibaf, said.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Israeli troops would remain in southern Lebanon \u201cas long as necessary\u201d and promised that he would \u201cnot allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons\u201d.<\/p>\n
By Sunday evening, there had been no reports of Israeli attacks or continued fighting as some residents of southern Lebanon cautiously returned to their homes.<\/p>\n
The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has repeatedly threatened to derail peace efforts.<\/p>\n
On Friday, planned US-Iranian talks were postponed after Israel launched deadly attacks in Lebanon following the deaths of four of its soldiers in combat.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military chief visited troops on Sunday in southern Lebanon, where he said Hezbollah was in a \u201cvery difficult position\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHezbollah has suffered a severe and significant blow, and we are committed to remaining prepared to continue operating and prevent its rebuilding,\u201d Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said.<\/p>\n
The overall death toll from the fighting in Lebanon has surpassed 4,100 since it escalated on March 2, the Ministry of Public Health said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Historic meeting\u2019<\/p>\n
Vance had earlier hailed \u201ca historic meeting\u201d in Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Even as Trump was threatening Iran, Vance told reporters the US president had \u201casked us to turn over a new leaf to transform our relationship with the people of Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n
Flanked by US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, Vance added: \u201cThe question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together?<\/p>\n
\u201cCan we turn over a new leaf? Can we change relations in the Middle East permanently?<\/p>\n
\u201cOr do we go back to doing things the old way, which is not our preference, but it\u2019s certainly very much something that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lebanon aside, there has been no indication that Iran\u2019s support for armed groups across the region, which has long drawn the ire of the US and Israel, would be addressed in the negotiations.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stressed that Tehran would not relinquish its right to enrich uranium although he repeated Iran\u2019s denial that it seeks nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can also state in writing that we have no intention of building a bomb,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first round of talks between high-level officials from Iran and the United States in Switzerland has ended,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[3188,239,1202,17,1197,74,7199],"class_list":["post-89598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-switzerland","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116793150441736046","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}