Talks that had been planned for Friday between the United States and Iran at the Burgenstock mountaintop resort in Switzerland will not take place, according to a Swiss foreign ministry statement.
The announcement came after a White House spokesperson said overnight that U.S. Vice President JD Vance had pulled out of a planned trip to meet Iranian negotiators in Switzerland on Friday to begin talks on implementing an agreement struck between Tehran and Washington to end the war.
Earlier, U.S. Vice President JD Vance pulled out of a planned trip to meet Iranian negotiators in Switzerland on Friday to begin complex talks on implementing the 14-point agreement, opens new tab struck between Tehran and Washington to end their war, opens new tab, a White House spokesperson said.
U.S. officials said this week they would hold a formal signing ceremony for the U.S.-Iran agreement in Geneva, but Iran’s foreign ministry cast doubt on that, saying it was unnecessary after both countries’ presidents signed the agreement on Wednesday.
Iran had said it was ready to begin technical talks after the two enemies extended a tenuous ceasefire by at least 60 days with the accord. But the semi-official Tasnim news agency said earlier on Thursday, before Vance’s announcement, that Iran’s negotiators needed to see signs of implementation of the interim agreement from the U.S. before the next rounds of peace talks could begin, and that there was no confirmation that its delegation would travel to Geneva.
Vance and the U.S. delegation had been ready to depart as soon as plans for the talks had been finalized, the White House spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday night. “But the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,” the statement said. There was no immediate response from Iran’s government.
The diplomatic back-and-forth over the planned ceremony and photo-op adds to the uncertainty over whether a lasting truce can be found to a regional war that has killed at least 7,000 people, sent energy prices soaring and shaken global markets.
