WASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2014 The U.S. and Iran are reporting early progress after a rare round of face-to-face talks in Switzerland, as both sides begin a two-month push to reach a deal on Iran\u2019s nuclear program, the Strait of\u00a0Hormuz\u00a0and other key issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u00a0all in all, a very productive\u00a036 hours.\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0going to have to keep working it,\u201d said Vice President JD Vance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As of Monday morning, Vance said one of the biggest breakthroughs so far is Iran agreeing to allow international nuclear inspectors back into the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranians have agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into their country. That is a major milestone for the American people and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran. And\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0exactly what we wanted to do,\u201d said Vance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vance\u00a0departed\u00a0Switzerland Monday after wrapping up what he called \u201cproductive\u201d talks with Iran. However, Vance stressed\u00a0a final\u00a0agreement is still far from complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe final deal is the house. We\u00a0set\u00a0the foundation. We\u00a0haven\u2019t\u00a0built the house, but\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0laid a successful foundation to get to a good place for the American people,\u201d said Vance. \u201cBut honestly, there is still a lot to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mediators say both sides also agreed to\u00a0establish\u00a0new communication channels aimed at preventing incidents in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil shipping route.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to build a mechanism for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open \u2014 it is open,\u201d said Vance. \u201cBut we also wanted to make sure that we actually set up the coordination mechanism so that we could design the Strait of Hormuz so that when there are conflicts that inevitably come up, we can make sure we work through them rather than that leading to escalation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The talks expanded to include the violence in Lebanon, where fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah has threatened broader regional stability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe past 24 hours have probably been the most peaceful that we\u2019ve seen, the situation in Lebanon,\u201d said Vance. \u201cThis is a work in progress, but we\u2019ve set up the operation so that it doesn\u2019t spiral out of control in the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry says formal negotiations over its nuclear program have not fully begun yet. Negotiators are expected to remain in Switzerland for\u00a0additional\u00a0talks, including technical details, this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2014 The U.S. and Iran are reporting early progress after a rare round of face-to-face talks in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[22102,102,101,22101,2594,22103],"class_list":["post-172832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-bureau","tag-hormuz","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-u-s-capitol","tag-washington-d-c","tag-washington-d-c-bureau"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116796311704433618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}