A round of US-Iran negotiations on the implementation of their agreement to end their war was set to kick off in Switzerland on Sunday, with Iranian negotiators arriving in the Swiss host city hours ahead of US Vice President JD Vance, even as renewed tensions flared over Tehran’s claim that it had closed the Strait of Hormuz once again.

Before boarding his flight to Europe, Vance told reporters he could “only be there for a day or two” and hoped to “make progress on the nuclear issue, make progress on the Lebanon ceasefire issue. Those are the two big things that I think we’re going to be focused on.”

Asked whether the fighting in Lebanon was threatening to derail the talks, Vance said: “Things are actually getting better there, and things are slowing down a little bit.”

“[Secretary of State Marco Rubio] and the entire team have been actively managing what’s going on in Lebanon,” he added.

“Despite the headlines, things are actually getting better there, and things are slowing down a little bit. It’s going to be something we’re just going to have to continuously manage to ensure that, you know, Israel and Lebanon are both safe and secure.”

“That’s fundamentally the goal of this, to make the whole region safe and secure,” he says. “The big problem is that you have somebody [who] will shoot and then somebody will respond, and you kind of have a chicken and egg problem where you’ve just got to stop the shooting for long enough to get the ceasefire to keep hold, that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

That remark appeared to decline to blame Hezbollah for the recent flareup, after Israeli officials said the terror group violated the truce by mounting repeated attacks on IDF troops, killing a four-member tank crew and prompting deadly Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in response.

Iran, for its part, blamed Israel, claiming its strikes violated the ceasefire, and with it the MOU with the US as well, declaring that in response, it was shutting the Strait of Hormuz. The American military said in response that this was untrue, that........

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