US, Iran begin peace talks in Switzerland

United States President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to restart war with Iran even as Vice President JD Vance met Iranian officials for the first talks under a peace deal.

The talks in the Swiss mountain resort of ‌Buergenstock owned by mediator Qatar were the first to be held under the terms of a memorandum of understanding agreed a week ago.

It calls for the strait to be reopened and a halt to all hostilities, including in Lebanon, which U.S. ally Israel invaded in March.

But Iran, arguing that Washington had failed to meet its commitment to halt fighting in Lebanon, said it had shut the strait again and Sunday’s talks would not cover substantive issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme.

“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!!!” Trump said.

At the talks, where U.S. and Iranian officials met in the presence of Qatari mediators, Vance played down the impact of violence in Lebanon, saying progress had been ⁠made towards ending hostilities there in recent days.

“These things are always a little bit messy,” he said.

Despite the announcement of a new ceasefire in Lebanon on Friday, there has been scant sign of an end to fighting there.

US warns Iran of fresh strikes over Lebanon proxies

Iran said on Saturday that as a result, it had again shut the strait, whose closure for nearly four months caused the biggest disruption of global energy supplies in history.

U.S. officials disputed whether the strait was again shut, but commercially available shipping data showed an immediate impact, Reuters reported.

Only a single small tanker crossed the strait with its location-signalling transponders on after Iran’s announcement, compared with dozens of ships in recent days when traffic had begun returning to pre-war levels.

Iran’s Fars news agency cited a military source as saying on Sunday that no new permits were being issued for ships to cross until further notice.

Iran also said there could be no start to the next phase of talks, including over its nuclear programme, until Lebanon fighting ends and it gets promised economic benefits.

Earlier on Sunday Vance briefly appeared in front of travelling media as he, envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistan’s Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir.