US And Iran Talks: Vance, Witkoff And Kushner Back At Table As Iran Agrees To Lebanon De-Confliction Cell
According to NBC, negotiators from the US and Iran entered a second day of talks Monday at Burgenstock resort near Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, aiming to solidify a permanent end to the war after a first day that began with a rocky start.
The US delegation is led by Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner. Iran is represented by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, with Qatar and Pakistan serving as mediators. Iranian state media said the first day’s talks had paused after Trump posted statements the Iranian delegation found insulting, with Tehran briefly closing the Strait of Hormuz before negotiations resumed.
Despite the turbulence, Iran and the US agreed to set up a communication line to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for commercial shipping, and created a de-confliction cell to address the ongoing fighting in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel. A senior US diplomat cited progress on multiple fronts and mediators Qatar and Pakistan hailed “encouraging progress.”
The 60-day clock set by the interim deal is running, with Iran’s nuclear future, frozen assets, and the Lebanon ceasefire all on the agenda. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah is a signatory to the US-Iran deal.
Diplomacy rarely moves in a straight line. That Day One nearly collapsed over a presidential tweet and Day Two still happened anyway is, for now, the only kind of progress available.
Check out our previous coverage of US-Iran diplomacy and the Middle East here.
