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The delegations of the United States and Iran are holding advanced technical discussion in Switzerland, as the agreement signed on Thursday between Tehran and Washington was disrupted by the continued Israeli attack on Lebanon.
Iran says the agreement includes a ceasefire in Lebanon and that the Israeli attack is a violation of the agreement.
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Sunday’s talks will be mediated between Pakistan and Qatar, and come after US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) electronically on Thursday.
Here’s what we know:
Who is attending?
Sunday they talk is being held in the Swiss town of Burgenstock at a luxury hotel above Lake Lucerne.
The delegation of Iran at the meeting led by the Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi.
The US delegation is led by Vice President JD Vance and includes Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Asim Munir, as well as Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, are also expected to take part in the talks, while Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz for violating the ceasefire in Lebanon.
Before leaving for talks on Saturday, Vance told reporters in the US that he hoped to “make progress on the nuclear issue” and “on the issue of ending the war in Lebanon”.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, said the Iranian delegation would “try to fulfill” the United States’ commitments outlined in the MoU and “clearly investigate how the other side intends to fulfill its commitments”.
What’s on the agenda?
Speaking ahead of talks on Sunday, Baghaei said a meeting between Iran, the US, Qatar and Pakistan will be held in Burgenstock.
“The Zionist regime continues to violate its commitment to Lebanon. This issue will be the main topic of today’s discussion,” Baghaei said in a video shared with the IRNA news agency.
Technical talks between the US and Iran will take place for 60 days, where officials from both sides are expected to discuss the final phase of the peace process and find solutions to key sticking points, such as Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s war in Lebanon.
But, in a report from Tehran, Resul Serdar Atas of Al Jazeera said on Saturday, before leaving Tehran and going to Switzerland, Iran’s main negotiator, Ghalibaf, said that Iran is going to Switzerland mainly to remind the American people that first they need to establish or initiate the implementation of the MoU, and that the technical negotiations are acceptable to America.
“Here, they (Iran) are talking mainly… about…
Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser and aide to Iran’s supreme leader, warned on Sunday that Tehran would not accept a paper deal and that Washington must fulfill its commitments.
In a post on X, Mokhber said the US understands the economic pressure.
He wrote: “Americans understand the language of finance and how they make money. “If this deal is only on paper, the flow of power in the Middle East will stop.
“Our negotiators will not be satisfied unless they fulfill all their promises and achieve national rights,” he added. Mr. Mokhber also appealed to those who were killed in the war, saying that Iran should not forget.
Lebanon
A ceasefire in Lebanon, however, is expected to dominate the first day of talks. Israeli forces killed dozens of people in Lebanon on Saturday, even as they reportedly stopped fighting Hezbollah.
According to reports from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Vall said that Iran will not move forward with the implementation of the agreement unless Israel complies with the agreement.
The first clause of the MoU states that the US and Iran agreed to “cease military operations in all areas, including in Lebanon”.
In addition, the memorandum adds that both sides will commit to ensuring “the integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon”.
However, it makes no mention of Israel, which currently occupies a fifth of the country and has been harassing Lebanon almost daily since early March, killing more than 4,000 people and driving more than a million from their homes.
Vall said that, according to Iran, the Americans have a responsibility to ensure that Israel complies with the agreement.
Ross Harrison, director of the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera that officials from both sides want to make sure that before going to the second phase of the current negotiations, which includes Iran’s nuclear program, they want to make sure that the first phase, which follows each clause of the MoU, is going well.
“And the Iranians have a very clear idea there, and that, because of the negotiations in the past, Israel and the United States dropped bombs on Iran…
Harrison said Iran feels the US has an obligation with the MoU to control Israel, which has not signed the memo and could still destroy it.
“At the moment, Israel can be a destroyer in this kind of negotiations. They are not signatories, so in a sense they are not bound by the agreement. So, it is not a violation between Iran and Israel. It is a real violation between Iran and the United States if the United States cannot impose its will and make Israel comply and cease fire,” he added.
The nuclear program
When technical talks begin, discussion of Iran’s nuclear program will be an important topic.
After decades of war, Tehran’s nuclear program remains a major issue between the US and Iran.
The US has made it clear that Iran should not possess, buy or develop nuclear weapons – or have the capability to do so.
Iran, on the other hand, says its program is civilian and that it may be willing to negotiate restrictions on its nuclear activities if sanctions are lifted.
What about the Strait of Hormuz?
On Saturday, Iran said the Strait of Hormuz, a world power chokepoint, was closed because of Israel’s attack on Lebanon, but the US military said the waterway remains open to all ships.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Saturday that the traffic of commercial ships in the road has increased since June 20. “The safe way to cross the coast of the world remains today when 55 commercial ships passed, moving a lot of cargo and more than 17 million barrels of oil to international markets,” he said in a statement.
On the same day, Mr. Trump promised that there would be no tariffs on passing through the crisis, unless they were collected by his country. “There will be NO ENFORCEMENT in the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days during the Ceasefire Period, and there will be NO ENFORCEMENT after the 60 days are up,” Trump wrote, “unless ordered by the United States of America.”
The actual closure of the strait and the US blockade of Iranian ports caused a global energy crisis and threatened to collapse the world economy. Rising oil prices in the US and their impact on the cost of living are some of the factors behind Trump’s decision to end the war.
