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Topic:World Politics
Tue 23 Jun 2026 at 6:40am
The US claims "great progress" has been made with Iran during the first substantial talks to take place under the new deal to pause the war.
US Vice-President JD Vance has talked up several outcomes from the high-level talks, though there are already conflicting messages from Iran.
Here's what we know about the early results of the talks, which have been taking place in Switzerland.
Mr Vance told a press conference that four objectives had been achieved during the talks he attended.
So far, not many specific details have been released about any of them.
But this is what the US vice-president says has been agreed to:
Mr Vance and Iran's chief negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, have talked about this as a kind of communication line to prevent conflict in the strait.
Mr Vance said this would also involve coordinating efforts to de-mine the strait.
"As the president of the United States has himself said, sometimes these ceasefires just mean you're shooting a little bit less," Mr Vance said.
"But we wanted to make sure that we had the proper coordination set up so that if there is shooting, if Hezbollah fires at Israel or if Israel responds, if there are other conflicts that arise in the region, we're actually talking to each other and figuring out how to stop the shooting."
Nuclear inspections were a key part of the 2015 Obama-era nuclear deal that Mr Trump terminated in 2018.
Since then, Iran has restricted the access granted to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. It all but ended inspections last year, after US-Israeli strikes on its nuclear sites.
Mr Vance said Iran had agreed to allow them to restart.
This represented "the first step in permanently denuclearising or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran", and "is probably what we're most excited about as Americans," he said.
But Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, told Iranian state media that no new commitment had been made.
"As much as this place is very beautiful, I can't stay here for the next 60 days," Mr Vance said.
"But the technical teams are going to be working, with proper oversight, to make sure that we're accomplishing the objectives that matter for everybody."
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The ceasefire in Lebanon is seen as an especially fragile part of this peace process. Tensions over Israeli attacks in Lebanon have threatened to derail the negotiations.
Lebanese officials said fighting had calmed since Saturday night, local time.
Hassan Wazni, a hospital director in the southern city of Nabatieh, said it was the first two full days of calm since the war began. He told the Reuters news agency by phone:
But Iran maintains Israel must pull its forces out of Lebanon, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting they will stay.
"The directive from me and the minister of defence to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is clear and has not changed," he said.
"Our fighters in southern Lebanon have full freedom of action to thwart any direct or emerging threat against them or against the residents of the north [of Israel].
"The IDF has no restrictions in this matter. I stand behind them, the entire nation stands behind them."
More than a million Lebanese people have been displaced by the war. Some are now starting to return to their homes.
The office of Lebanese president Joseph Aoun said he had spoken to Mr Vance and others on the phone about how to maintain the ceasefire and prevent Israeli military escalation.
The US has confirmed it is waiving sanctions on Iranian sales of oil and related products.
The waiver will stay in place until August 21, the US Treasury announced.
Abbas Araghchi (centre) is in Switzerland for talks with the US. (AP: Urs Flueeler)
Mr Qalibaf told Iranian media that the signing for the release of $US12 billion ($17 billion) in frozen assets had been finalised.
Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had earlier announced on X that the US had also agreed to unfreeze some of Iran's frozen assets.
But, without naming Mr Araghchi, Mr Vance said there had been "social media reporting that gets this wrong".
He said "if" the US was to unfreeze Iranian funds, it would involve establishing a system that meant Iran would spend the money on American food products, including soy, corn and wheat.
Qatar would oversee the system and approve the spending.
The idea was put forward by US envoy Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law, Mr Vance said.
He described it as "a classic Trump deal where if Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, they're going to go to make American farmers richer and to feed the Iranian people".
But this is another point of early contention.
Iranian central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said there was no obligation to purchase food from the US, according to Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency.
The talks got off to a rocky start after US President Donald Trump apparently offended the Iranians.
He made threats to attack Iran online and during a Fox News interview, in which he said the US would "blow the shit out of them" if the Strait of Hormuz was closed again.
Video showed Mr Araghchi and other members of his delegation walk out of the negotiating room shortly after they walked in.
Iran agreeing to a ceasefire deal with the United States tells us Tehran likely had something to gain from signing on.
Tasnim, citing a source, reported that after Mr Trump's threats became public, the delegation refused to return to the room and instead traded messages with the US via Pakistani and Qatari mediators.
But Mr Vance played the incident down.
"Yes, they did threaten to walk out, or at least there were social media threats that they would walk out," he said.
"But we were negotiating well past one in the morning yesterday, so they didn't walk out.
The technical talks are expected to continue in Switzerland through the rest of this week.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meanwhile spend most of the week visiting some of America's Gulf allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain.
He will also meet representatives from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman to discuss the interim peace deal and "efforts to secure full and free safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz", the State Department says.
Some of Iran's top negotiators are planning to head to Oman for separate talks about the future of the strait.
They include Mr Qalibaf, who was instrumental in negotiating the interim peace deal, and Mr Araghchi.
Iranian leaders have previously told the ABC and others that Iran was not planning to introduce "tolls", but fees would be charged to cover the costs of managing the strait.
ABC/wires
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Qatar
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Switzerland
United Arab Emirates
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