US vice president cancels trip for peace talks with Iran

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.

JD 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.

Read more: US and Iran presidents sign ceasefire agreement, but Trump says he could still resume attacks

Israel, which was not included in the peace talks and has distanced itself from the U.S.-Iran accord, continued its fighting against the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, also raising questions ​about whether the agreement would hold.

In Washington, some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican allies in Congress questioned whether he had given up too much in order to end the conflict, which is unpopular with most Americans. Trump previously wrote he would only end the war with Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” but the memorandum he signed with Iran instead provides relief from economic sanctions, unfreezes assets worth tens of billions of dollars and immediately provides U.S. waivers for Iran to export its oil.

Iran’s Supreme ​Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Trump had signed the deal “out of desperation” and signalled that upcoming talks over Iran’s nuclear program, among Trump’s stated reasons for starting the war, would not be easy.

“If the American side wants to ​be too demanding, we will not accept it,” he said in a written message.