Vice President JD Vance speaks during Turning Point USA's AmericaFest 2025, Sunday, December 21, 2025, in Phoenix. | AP/Jon Cherry
BUERGENSTOCK, Switzerland/DUBAI, June 21 (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President JD Vance held peace talks with Iran at a Swiss resort on Sunday, overshadowed by Tehran saying it had shut the Strait of Hormuz and would not discuss nuclear issues because Washington had failed to halt fighting in Lebanon.
The talks were the first to be held under the terms of a memorandum of understanding agreed a week ago, which calls for the strait to be reopened and a halt to all hostilities, including in Lebanon.
But with scant sign of an end to fighting there, Iran said on Saturday it had again shut the strait, whose closure for nearly four months caused the biggest disruption of global energy supplies in history.
It also said there could be no start to the next phase of substantive negotiations, including over its nuclear programme, until Lebanon’s fighting ends and it receives promised economic benefits.
U.S. officials have disputed that the strait is closed and said 55 merchant ships crossed it on Saturday. But on Sunday Iran’s Fars news agency cited a military source as saying no new permits were being issued for ships to cross until further notice.
Commercially available tracking data suggested that Iran had indeed cut off the strait, with no crossings by ships that reported their positions – other than those serving Iranian ports – after Iran announced it was closed.
The Iranian and U.S. delegations at the talks initially met Qatari and Pakistani mediators on Sunday ahead of the four-way meetings due later in the afternoon.
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