Middle East live: US-Iran peace talks underway as strait of Hormuz remains closed

• Talks between the US and Iran began in Switzerland today, following the memorandum of understanding that was signed days ago. Vice president JD Vance arrived at the Swiss mountainside resort of Burgenstock early on Sunday to lead the US delegation. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar are also in attendance.

• Iran said that it planned to close the strait of Hormuz after waves of Israeli strikes in Lebanon in a move that threatens to derail the fragile interim peace deal with the US. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned ships not to approach the waterway, citing what it called Israeli crimes in Lebanon and a US violation of commitments to establish a ceasefire there.

• JD Vance said “great progress” had been made during the talks, but did not go into detail about what steps forward had been taken. He said the technical negotiations may not solve every disagreement but “allow us to sit together as teams for the first time in history.”

• Donald Trump issued further threats to Iran, posting to Truth Social: “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!!!” He also told Fox News that he warned Iran against closing the strait of Hormuz, telling Iranian officials “You close it and you won’t have a country.”

• Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated that Tehran was willing to provide assurances that the country was not seeking a nuclear weapon, while insisting that Iran would not relinquish its right to enrich uranium.

• Israeli defense minister ‌Israel Katz said in a statement that there ⁠was and is “no restriction” on ⁠Israeli ⁠soldiers ​to act to eliminate ⁠threats in Lebanon, and that troops would not withdraw from the security zone. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israeli forces would remain in southern Lebanon “as long as necessary.”

• Rafael Grossi, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he has met Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis in Burgenstock “to take stock of recent developments regarding Iran, the path ahead and the important role of the IAEA”.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reported that at least 4,106 have been killed and 12,153 wounded since the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began on March 2.

It added that among those killed were 383 women, 251 children, and 135 medical workers.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israeli forces would remain in southern Lebanon “as long as necessary”, while also vowing to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“We will remain in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary to protect the cherished residents of the north and all the citizens of Israel… Nothing will alter that commitment,” Netanyahu said.

“And with regard to Iran: whatever political developments may unfold, I will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. As long as I serve as prime minister of Israel, that will not happen.”

Over ⁠25 ⁠million barrels ​of Iranian oil ⁠have passed ⁠through ​the ‌virtual ‌blockade ‌line since Monday, the head of ‌the Iranian ​National Oil ⁠Company Hamid Bovard ​told state ​TV ​on ​Sunday.

Energy secretary Chris Wright said that 67 ships have passed through the strait of Hormuz in the last 24 hours as the US military guided them through a shipping lane that Iranians have heavily mined.

“What we’re demonstrating to the Iranians is we can have flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz with or without them,” Wright told Fox News.

Wright also said that Iran has not yet “de-mined” the strait’s central shipping channel, but the US has opened a separate route to the south and has been escorting ships through it.

Donald Trump warned Iran against closing the strait of Hormuz, according to Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst.

“You close it and you won’t have a country,” Trump said he told Iranian officials about the strait. “You won’t even make it back to your fu*king country.”

Trump also said the US could become the “Guardian Angel” of the strait and take 20% of the oil.

“We may take over the Strait, if we have to,” Trump told Fox News. “I’ll blow the sh*t out of them.”

“If they don’t make a deal, we’ll collect tolls,” he added.

Israel’s military chief said on Sunday that Hezbollah had suffered a severe blow fighting Israeli forces and was now in a “very difficult position”, as he met with troops in southern Lebanon.

“Hezbollah has suffered a severe and significant blow, and we are committed to remaining prepared to continue operating and prevent its rebuilding,” Lieutenant Gen Eyal Zamir said, according to a military statement. “Hezbollah is in a very difficult position.”

Donald Trump has just been posting to his social media platform Truth Social with further threats to Iran.

The US president posted:

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!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP

It comes just after US vice-president JD Vance had hailed the “great progress” made in the last few hours as he gives update on US-Iran peace talks taking place in Switzerland today.

Trump was referring to Hezbollah, which joined the Middle East war with attacks on Israel. Clashes in recent days between the two have threatened to derail the US-Iran preliminary peace deal.

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday killed at least 16 people, local authorities said, despite reports of a renewed ceasefire aiming to end the continuing clashes.

Lebanon’s civil defence agency said its personnel transported “16 dead and 12 wounded” to hospital, adding that they had been working “since the early morning hours” in the Nabatieh district.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who has been acting as a key mediator between Washington and Tehran, has thanked the US president, Donald Trump, for his “visionary and very dynamic leadership which resulted in this meeting here”.

“I think here we are going to have wonderful discussions which will lead to, hopefully, very productive results in times to come,” Sharif was quoted as having said.

JD Vance said he hoped Washington and Tehran could reset their relationship, at the start of what he called “historic” face-to-face talks in Switzerland today.

“This is a historic meeting,” Vance said at the Burgenstock resort, adding that the goal was to “turn over a new leaf to transform our relationship with the people of Iran, and to extend an outstretched hand”.

US vice-president JD Vance has been giving an update on the latest in the talks between Iran and the US in Switzerland today and says “great progress” has been made.

Vance told reporters that he wanted that while “Iran has been a driver of regional instability” he could see a future where everyone “can work together to promote peace and prosperity”. He said president Donald Trump was committed to see a full regional ceasefire, but admited ceasefires are “a little bit messy”.

He added the technical negotiations may not solve every disagreement but “allow us to sit together as teams for the first time in history”.

“Outside the last few months, never before have the Iranian and American leadership met at such a high level.”

He added US negotiators are in Switzerland to, “through diplomacy, through working together, transform the Middle East, where Iran and the Gulf have been at war with each other.”

A secretive investigation into the attack that killed at least 175 has concluded, reports suggest. Will its findings ever see the light of day?

The attack on a girl’s elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab was one of the US military’s deadliest civilian bombings in decades. But nearly four months on, the Pentagon has produced no answers about why the military fired a Tomahawk cruise missile into a school on the first day of the war, killing at least 175 people, mostly children.

Some critics doubt that the Pentagon ever will, or will bury the results under classifications to keep the worst mistakes secret from the public.

As the US signs a shaky memorandum of understanding on a ceasefire with Iran, the secretive investigation into the attack has also become a test case for the self-styled secretary of war Pete Hegseth’s new approach to what he calls “warfighting”. As he said in early March, nearly two weeks after the attack, “our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it”.

Shortly after the attack, Donald Trump suggested that it was carried out by Iran. When it became clear that the strike used a US-made Tomahawk missile, he suggested that Iran also had access to the cruise missiles. It does not.

Read more:

Envoys from regional heavyweights Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt pushed for swift progress in US-Iran talks at a meeting in Cairo on Sunday, as negotiations between the two countries began in Switzerland.

In a joint statement, the ministers called for a “swift and successful conclusion” to negotiations aimed at reaching a solution to outstanding issues that is “lasting, verifiable and mutually acceptable”, while taking into account regional concerns, particularly the security and stability of Gulf states.

Saudi Arabia, which was hit by Iranian attacks during the conflict, joined mediator Pakistan alongside Turkey and Egypt in facilitating negotiations weeks into the Middle East war.

My colleagues Heather Stewart and Philip Inman have done some analysis on how despite the ceasefire and ongoing peace talks, the Iran conflict is continuing to cast a shadow over the global economy

You can read their analysis here:

A technical fault in air traffic control, triggered by ⁠security measures for peace talks between the US and Iran in Switzerland, caused ⁠disruptions at Zurich airport ⁠on ​Sunday, aviation authorities said, adding the problem had been resolved.

The glitch occurred after ⁠the integration of a restricted zone over Buergenstock, the Swiss mountain resort where negotiations are ⁠taking place, into radar display systems, Swiss air traffic control ​authority Skyguide said.

The ‌zone was only ‌decided at the last minute because the decision to ‌hold the latest round of talks was not finalised until Saturday, according to a statement.

Operations have since returned to normal, Skyguide said, adding: “The systems are running smoothly, and security was ensured at all times.“

By ‌midday, 12 arrivals and 14 departures had been cancelled, an airport spokesperson told Reuters. ​At least 60 departures were delayed, she added. US vice-president JD Vance arrived for peace talks with Iran at Buergenstock on Sunday as foreseen in a tentative ⁠peace deal, but the diplomacy was overshadowed by ​Iran’s announcement ​that it had reimposed its ​blockade of the strait of Hormuz.

Mediator for Qatar has confirmed the US-Iran talks in Switzerland have begun, according to AFP.

The talks between Iran and the US aimed at building out the fragile interim deal to end have been beset by difficulties including an Iranian decision to keep the strait of Hormuz closed in protest at Donald Trump’s inability to force Israel to end the fighting in Lebanon.

In a statement Qatar’s foreign ministry announced “the launch of the Lake Lucerne Summit and the first meeting of the high-level committee with the participation of representatives from the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the two mediating states, the State of Qatar and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan”.

The US vice-president, JD Vance, leading the US delegation, earlier said he was adding Lebanon to an agenda that had originally been conceived to focus on the opening of the strait, the lifting of US sanctions on Iranian oil exports and the unfreezing of Iranian assets held overseas.

The Iranian delegation is led by the speaker of the parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, but the presence of the deputy oil minister and the governor of Iran’s central bank shows how Iran had wanted to focus on the terms for lifting sanctions.

The Swiss foreign ministry said the US and Iranian delegations, plus mediators from Pakistan and Qatar, were all present at the luxury resort.