Mediators seek pathway to ceasefire

High-level negotiations aimed at permanently ending the Iran war ended in Switzerland early Monday, mediators Pakistan and Qatar announced, while technical talks continued amid efforts to translate a fragile ceasefire into a lasting agreement.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X early Monday to hail the mediation efforts by Pakistan and Qatar, saying that they "delivered major progress to end the Lebanese War".

In his message, Araghchi said the first real test of the understandings reached would be a deconfliction method created over the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, speaking to the state-run IRNA news agency, also said "good progress was made" and a mechanism will be arranged on safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

Pakistan, Qatar and Iran have all acknowledged the end of the first round of high-level talks. The US hasn't commented, The Associated Press reported.

On Sunday, US Vice-President JD Vance and US negotiators including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, negotiated with Iranian officials to open talks under the terms of the memorandum of understanding signed between Washington and Tehran last week to extend the ceasefire from April for at ‌least another 60 days.

The talks had a tense start, strained by President Donald Trump's renewal of threats, with Iran and US media reports providing different accounts of the discussions.

Iranian media said talks had entered a "difficult phase" and recessed after the "publication of an insulting message by the US President".

Just before talks officially began on Sunday, Fox News reported that Trump said he told Iranian officials "you won't have a country" if they tried to close the strait again. Trump also repeated an earlier threat that the US would take over the waterway and possibly charge a toll of its own, Fox News said.

The Iranian delegation left negotiations in protest of Trump's threat to launch further strikes against Iran, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Trump also went to social media to continue threatening Tehran from afar.

"Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble," Trump said on Truth Social. "If they don't, we'll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!"

"They would do better to be careful about their statements," Iran's lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said on X after Trump's post. "Our armed forces are prepared to respond to them in a different manner. They may keep talking, it is we who act."

US officials, on the other hand, offered a separate account of the negotiations on Sunday.

Vance and the US delegation have been "engaged in constant meetings and negotiations," a US diplomat told reporters in Switzerland.

"The Iranians are still here and discussions are ongoing. We anticipate continuing to work through the night," the diplomat was quoted as saying.

"The Iranians never left and are still here meeting and negotiating deep into the night," the diplomat said.

"We've talked about the strait, Lebanon, nuclear issues and details of implementing the MOU, among other topics."

During the Sunday talks, the two sides discussed mechanisms to help ensure the Strait of Hormuz remains open, enforce the fragile ceasefire in southern Lebanon and address "all elements of the nuclear deal" in an effort to establish a starting point for technical negotiations, CNN reported on Sunday, citing a senior US diplomat involved in the negotiations.

Analysts have noted that Lebanon constitutes the "greatest test" for the talks.

Leslie Vinjamuri, president and chief executive officer of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, noted that while the war has demonstrated what American power can still do, it has also revealed the United States has struggled to convert its coercive capacity into a durable regional order for the Middle East.

"The first and hardest test is Lebanon," followed by the nuclear program, Vinjamuri wrote in an analysis.

shiguang@chinadailyusa.com