ZURICH (AP) — The American push to quickly begin high-stakes talks with Iran hit a snag Friday, just days after the signing of an agreement that opens a two-month window for negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program and returning oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to prewar levels.
Iranian officials did not travel as planned to Switzerland, insisting that Israel strikes on Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants Lebanon must stop before the talks can
take place, according to three regional officials and a person familiar with the matter. They were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing mediation to try to get the talks rescheduled and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The situation was fluid as Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to renew their ceasefire, according to a U.S. official and regional officials. It remains to be seen whether that could help put the U.S.-Iran talks back on track.
In Washington, President Donald Trump lashed out once again in the midst of the intensified fighting in Lebanon and the stalled nuclear talks.
“We didn’t meet out of desperation, Iran did,” Trump wrote in a social media post Friday. “They are FINISHED! We’ll play out the 60 days. They get no money, not ten cents!”
Trump's vice president, JD Vance, had been prepared to make an overnight flight to meet with his Iranian counterparts at a mountainside resort in the tiny Swiss village of Obbürgen and begin the technical talks.
Vance's staff and a small group of journalists had gathered at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington in anticipation of the trip. Dozens of White House officials, advance staffers and more media were already in Switzerland.
Then the trip was called off — abruptly and for the time being.
A White House statement said Vance, tapped by Trump to lead the negotiations, decided to postpone his travel. It made no mention of the escalating violence in Lebanon.
“The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,” the statement said.
But, according to officials, the Iranians made clear to the White House that they had balked at starting the talks with Vance because of the Israeli action in Lebanon.
The fighting had intensified with at least 18 killed by Israeli airstrikes, while four Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, officials said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel’s military would 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 U.S.-Iran agreement.
Iran insists Israel must withdraw from the large swath 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, 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.
“We think these technical negotiations start sometime this weekend," Vance said. "That’s still the plan. But that could change.”
Soon after Vance spoke to reporters, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, endorsed direct negotiations with the United States. His terse statement, read by state media, 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.
The messaging seemed to give Khamenei, who was badly wounded in the U.S. strike on Feb. 28 that killed his father, some maneuverability. Hard-liners in the Iranian government, including Khamenei’s father, long opposed direct talks with the White House, especially after Trump, during his first term, pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by Democratic President Barack Obama's administration.
Vance was initially expected to go to Switzerland to sign the agreement at a formal ceremony. Instead, Trump signed the document Wednesday during a glitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles with French President Emmanuel Macron. Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, separately signed the agreement.
It says Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed to be buried under rubble left by U.S. military strikes last year targeting Tehran’s key nuclear sites, must at minimum be diluted under international supervision.
It also says Iran shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons — a commitment Tehran has made previously. 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, causing global economic reverberations, said Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities in Washington.
She said the U.S. is now “essentially trying to negotiate our way back to the prewar status quo."
Neil Quilliam, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House think tank, said the “buoyant” Iranian leadership feels it has the upper hand. The endorsement of the talks by the Iranian supreme leader “sends a very strong signal domestically: ’We’re now on an equal footing with the U.S.'”
”‘Trump has gone from calling for regime change on Feb. 28 to this: Now they’re going to sit down with us directly and talk about these big issues,'” Quilliam said of the Iranians' thinking. “So it’s intended more for the domestic audience, and telling them: ‘We are firmly in control of this. There can be no protests, no revolution: We are a new regime and we’re staying put.’”
For Vance, a likely 2028 presidential contender, how the negotiations play out could have enormous ramifications for his political fortunes.
Vance's skepticism of foreign wars was a core part of his political identity during his political rise, which included election as a U.S. senator. Now he finds himself the chief defender of negotiating an endgame to Trump's conflict that Democrats have largely derided as a foolish gambit. Some hawkish Republicans are aghast that Trump is getting behind a settlement that could put billions of dollars into Iran's coffers.
U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said aspects of the deal are “completely out of step” with Trump's goals.
Trump fiercely criticized Obama for the 2015 nuclear agreement, which Trump argued failed to stop Tehran from advancing toward a weapon and funneled billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic. The Republican president exited the U.S. from the deal in 2018.
Trump has pushed back against comparisons to that earlier agreement, saying he had “negotiated from strength” after a major military campaign while asserting that Obama was paying the Iranians off and not receiving acquiescence.
Wicker, R-Miss., was particularly concerned about the $300 billion fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran mentioned in the 14-point agreement. Trump and Vance have said no U.S. taxpayer money would go to such a fund and it would not come without concessions and reforms by Tehran.
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Magdy reported from Cairo.
