U.S. Vice President JD Vance spoke to reporters about the talks held in Switzerland, saying: “Yesterday was a very, very good day. We made very good progress. We did exactly what we wanted to do. The final agreement is the house. We laid the foundation. We haven’t built it yet, but we successfully laid the foundation.”
“This is not a deal that the U.S. is imposing on the region… This is a deal that the region has desperately asked the U.S. to implement,” Vance said, adding: “We wanted to create a mechanism to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. It is open. We wanted to ensure that we build a mechanism so that when conflicts inevitably arise, we are able to resolve them.”
“As Trump has said, sometimes these ceasefires simply mean that a few fewer shots are being fired. But we wanted to make sure that we have established the right coordination, so that if there are exchanges of fire — if Hezbollah strikes Israel or if Israel responds — we are in real communication with each other and finding ways to stop the shooting,” the U.S. Vice President emphasized.
“The Iranians have agreed to invite International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors back into their country.” Talks regarding the inspections could begin as early as this week. “I can’t stay here (in Switzerland) for the next 60 days. I want to return to the U.S. The technical teams will be working,” Vance noted.
JD Vance: Israelis have made it very clear they have no territorial ambitions in southern Lebanon
“The Iranians threatened to walk away, or at least there were threats on social media that they would walk away. They didn’t walk away,” he noted. “We told the Iranians yesterday: ‘When you engage in what we millennials would call… trash talk, you can’t expect Trump not to respond.’ When they say things that aren’t true, Trump is going to respond to them,” he added.
On the critical issue of Lebanon, the Vice President said it remains an ongoing discussion, a “work in progress.” “Sometimes a low-level Hezbollah operative launches a drone without the approval of senior leadership. Of course, Israel has to respond to that, but we could have a more peaceful situation if Israel responded within the context of the ongoing conversation between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel, and other partners in the region,” he stressed. JD Vance was clear, however, that Israel and every other nation in the region has the right to self-defense.
He argued that “the Israelis have made it very clear that they have no territorial ambitions in southern Lebanon. The reason they feel they need to be there is because they are concerned about Hezbollah fighters. We believe we can reach a point where both Lebanon’s territorial integrity and Israel’s security are protected.”
According to the U.S. Vice President, “what Jared (Kushner), the Qataris, and the whole team achieved is, to me, a classic Trump deal. If the Iranian assets are ever unfrozen, it will make American farmers richer and help feed the Iranian people.”
