US-Iran Peace Talks Advance Despite Trump’s Fiery Threat

US and Iranian officials both reported movement on the opening day of peace negotiations in Switzerland, even after the summit began turbulently. Iranian representatives initially walked away following President Donald Trump’s threat to “blow the s*** out of them,” but the discussions later resumed, with a second day of meetings set to follow. A senior US diplomat said negotiators had made headway on several issues, including proposed “mechanisms” to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and to preserve a ceasefire in southern Lebanon. Speaking anonymously to brief reporters on the continuing talks, the diplomat said late Sunday that the Iranian delegation remained at the venue and that negotiations were still active. One topic, the official said, was Iran’s public messaging on the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran’s military claimed it had closed Saturday in response to ongoing fighting in Lebanon. US Central Command has challenged Tehran’s assertion that the strait was shut again. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that “tireless Pakistani and Qatari mediation has delivered major progress to end Lebanon War.” Qatar and Pakistan, acting as mediators, also praised what they described as “encouraging progress” in the talks.

The senior-level negotiations aimed at securing a lasting end to the Iran conflict wrapped up early Monday. More technical, lower-level discussions are expected to continue through the week after Iran and the United States agreed to establish a “de-confliction cell” focused on the violence in Lebanon. Araghchi said the first “real test” of the diplomatic process would be whether that mechanism could help stop the fighting. A member of Iran’s negotiating team told state television that negotiators had reached draft language on “temporary sanctions waivers for oil and petroleum derivatives.” The Daily Mail has contacted the White House for comment.

Vance and US negotiators, including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, met with Iran’s lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Araghchi in a session that Iranian state media said lasted about 80 minutes. The talks opened under strain Sunday after Trump, in profanity-laced phone calls and social media posts, threatened to resume bombing Iran as Vance was beginning the negotiations. During Sunday morning’s session, Vance had been seeking to play down the severity of the fighting in Lebanon just minutes before Trump again warned of strikes on Iran if Tehran failed to restrain Hezbollah and the group’s attacks on Israel. Trump said he told Iranian officials: “You close the strait and you won’t have a country.”

“You won’t even make it back to your [expletive] country … we’ll take over the rest of the country,” he added, according to Fox News. “We may take over the Strait, if we have to. I’ll blow the [expletive] out of them.” In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!” Responding on X, Iran’s lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, warned: “They would do better to be careful about their statements.”

“Our armed forces are prepared to respond to them in a different manner. They may keep talking, it is we who act.” Still, a US official told the Daily Mail that the Swiss discussions were expected to run into the night, with Qatari and Pakistani delegations continuing to mediate. After the meeting, Pakistan and Qatar said lower-level technical negotiations would remain underway in Switzerland for the rest of the week. Those sessions are intended to produce the detailed breakthroughs needed before senior officials can return to finalize and sign agreements.

A senior US diplomat involved in the negotiations, who spoke anonymously about the closed-door discussions, said Sunday’s talks included efforts to clarify Iran’s recent remarks about the Strait of Hormuz. The official also said Washington and Tehran had created a “line of communication” to manage issues in the strait and “avoid incidents and miscommunication with the aim of safe passage for commercial vessels” during the ceasefire period. Negotiators also addressed hopes for enforcing a ceasefire in southern Lebanon, alongside “robust” exchanges on the nuclear file. The sides are now working within a 60-day window to settle technical details that could carry major consequences for the global economy and international security.

The agreement also calls for an end to hostilities in Lebanon, one of Iran’s central demands and a point included in the opening section of the deal. But within days of the agreement being signed, it came under pressure as fighting intensified in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group. Iran’s military then announced that the Strait of Hormuz had again been closed. Tehran said the Lebanon crisis would now be folded into the negotiations taking place in Switzerland. A renewed ceasefire in Lebanon, brokered Saturday, appeared to be holding, while Israel’s military said it would lift movement restrictions Monday morning for residents near the Lebanese border — another indication that tensions had eased.

However, neither Israel nor Hezbollah is a party to the US-Iran agreement, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to keep Israeli forces in southern Lebanon until any threat to Israel has been removed. Hezbollah, for its part, has refused to stop its attacks unless Israel commits to withdrawing. “The question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together? Can we turn over a new leaf?” Vance said at the start of the talks, asking whether the two sides could “change relations in the Middle East permanently.” The Iranian delegation did not address the assembled Western journalists before the negotiations began.

The agreement signed by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian immediately allows Tehran to sell its oil freely and paves the way for Iran to tap into billions of dollars in assets that are currently frozen. The agreement also calls for Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were targeted in U.S. strikes a year ago. Pezeshkian, however, declared Sunday that ‘we will never back down from the right to enrich uranium, and the other side is also forced to accept it,’ according to Iran’s state media.

Trump, in a telephone interview with Fox News, later warned that the Iranian president should watch what he says and threatened to take over Iran, in comments relayed by a Fox correspondent. Iran had cautiously approached the talks given its previous experience with U.S. negotiations on the nuclear issue, which twice in the past year were interrupted by military strikes. A CBS News Poll released Sunday revealed that 69 percent of Americans believe that Iran’s nuclear program has not been permanently stopped, with 59 percent sharing a belief that Iran will not stop threatening its neighbors in the region in the coming months.

Only 22 percent of respondents noted that they think the US is getting the better end of the deal, while 37 percent believe that it was better for Iran. Vance had originally been slated to be on the ground at the Bürgenstock resort near Lucerne on Friday, but his departure from the United States was delayed after fighting escalated in Lebanon and Iranian officials canceled plans to attend the talks. US Central Command has disputed Iran’s claim that it once again shuttered the Strait of Hormuz and said US forces continued to monitor the situation to ensure traffic continues to flow through the waterway.

The vice president has said that millions of barrels of oil have moved through the strait in recent days. While Vance said he planned to be in Switzerland for just ‘a day or two,’ leaving much of the detailed negotiations to be spearheaded by Witkoff and Kushner, his role in the talks has heightened scrutiny of the vice president at a time when he is actively considering a 2028 presidential campaign. Trump and Vance have come under searing criticism from parts of their own party for the deal. Republican hard-liners have unfavorably likened it to a nuclear agreement signed by the Obama administration that Trump and the GOP have insisted did nothing to actually terminate Iran’s nuclear program.

The recent agreement signed by Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian immediately allows Tehran to sell its oil freely and paves the way for Iran to tap into billions of dollars in assets that are currently frozen. It also calls for Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, believed to be buried under nuclear sites that were targeted in US strikes last summer. The agreement says commercial vessels can pass through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days without a charge, but does not preclude future fees imposed by Iran.

Trump made his own threat on Saturday to levy U.S. tolls on the strait if there is no deal with Iran in 60 days, insisting in a social media post that the money would be for ‘services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East.’ Asian stocks were mixed Monday with markets in Japan and South Korea trading higher, while oil prices edged lower on fresh optimism over progress in US-Iran negotiations. US futures were trading lower. Oil prices fell as talks progressed over a permanent end to the Iran war. Brent crude, the international standard, was trading 1.4 percent lower to $79.42 per barrel. It was at roughly $70 a barrel before the start of the war in late February.