US Vice President J.D. Vance said that despite “threats” and “whining”, negotiations between the United States and Iran have made “significant progress”.
Vance said on Monday that talks in Burgenstock, Switzerland, were continuing and that Tehran had agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to return to Iran. Negotiations became tense over the weekend after Iran announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz over Israel’s attack on Lebanon, calling it a violation of the ceasefire.
“Certainly there was a little bit of intimidation and a little bit of grumbling, but in the end the talks continued and we made a lot of progress,” Vance told reporters.
Vance said Iran’s agreement to bring back IAEA inspectors is “a major milestone for the American people and the first step toward permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”
Looking forward, Vance said there are processes in place now to ensure there is no escalation in the area.
“We want a regional ceasefire. We want Hezbollah to stop firing on our friends in Israel. We want Israelis to live in peace. We also want to make sure that when something happens, it doesn’t turn into a broader escalation. So I think we’ve been very good at building what are called deconfliction mechanisms,” he added.
“Classic Trump Agreement”
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that “significant progress” had been made during the talks.
Vance said that while “a very good foundation for a successful final agreement” had been laid, “there is still a lot of work to do” to ensure traffic flow resumes, particularly when it comes to demining the Strait of Hormuz.
Shipping through the crucial waterway, through which about 25% of the world’s total energy supplies are transported, came to a standstill over the weekend after Iran announced it had closed a key oil chokepoint again, according to maritime data trackers.
Vance added that President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has come up with a “very interesting solution” with Qatar to get U.S. approval for the process to unfreeze frozen Iranian assets.
“What Jared and the Qataris and the entire team here at Burgenstock have accomplished is, to me, a classic Trump deal, where if the Iranian assets are unfrozen, they go to enrich American farmers and feed the Iranian people,” Vance said.
“This is a very good, very typical Trump deal. It’s great for our people, it’s great for the Iranian people, and it’s fundamentally going to contribute to the security architecture in the region that we’ve been building.”
