News says the first round of US and Iran talks ended with “encouraging progress,” and mediators Qatar and Pakistan said early on Monday that the sides now have “a roadmap towards reaching a final deal within 60 days.” The talks began on Sunday in Switzerland, and the Iranian negotiators left on Monday as technical discussions were due to continue.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf answers Donald Trump
The timetable came while the political pressure around the talks stayed visible. Donald Trump posted that Iran must immediately stop their highly paid proxies in Lebanon from causing trouble, and later threatened to “hit Iran very hard again” if they did not.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf answered directly: “Don’t they think that if their threats had any effect, they wouldn’t be in this desperate situation today?... No matter how much they talk, it is we who take action.” The exchange ran alongside Seyed Abbas Araghchi’s comments that there had been “major progress” towards ending the conflict in Lebanon.
Strait of Hormuz communication line
Mediators Qatar and Pakistan said the memorandum of understanding signed last week already included a commitment to ending the fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon, and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. They also said a communication line had been formed to avoid incidents and miscommunication for safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.
That mechanism matters for ship operators because it turns the talks from a political statement into a basic operating channel: a way to reduce the chance that commercial traffic is caught in a misread movement or a sudden military reaction. Seyed Abbas Araghchi also posted that Pakistani and Qatari mediation had delivered major progress to end Lebanon War and that “Oil and petrochem exports are waived, blockade lifted, some frozen assets released, and major reconstruction & development plan launched for Iran.”
Lebanon and the de-confliction cell
The mediators said a de-confliction cell was created between the US, Iran and Lebanon, facilitated by the mediating countries, to end military operations in Lebanon. Seyed Abbas Araghchi described that cell as the first real test. Since the memorandum of understanding was signed, there has been an upsurge in fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, and Israeli air strikes have killed dozens of Lebanese including women and children, according to the health ministry.
A new ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was declared on Friday, but Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the Israeli military would remain in southern Lebanon for as long as was necessary to protect northern Israel. Naim Qassem rejected any Israeli military presence in southern Lebanon and said Hezbollah would defend itself.
Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz
The talks also faced a practical contradiction on the waterway itself. Iran announced on Saturday that it had shut the Strait of Hormuz, though tracking data showed vessels continued to pass through it. The gap between the announcement and the traffic on the water left commercial operators relying on the new communication line more than on the rhetoric around it.
For now, the next step is technical rather than ceremonial: the 60-day roadmap is in place, the de-confliction cell is in place, and the parties have to test whether either channel can hold when pressure rises again in Lebanon or at the Strait of Hormuz. That is the real measure of the talks, not the language around them.
