The U.S.-Iran summit in Switzerland has run into trouble on its third day, with both sides making conflicting claims. A day after Vice President JD Vance hailed a ‘major milestone’ in talks, declaring Iran had agreed to allow United Nations inspectors back into the country, the Iranian negotiators denied the claim.
On Monday, Vance touted the agreement on nuclear inspectors as “a major milestone for the American people, and the first step in permanently denuclearizing or permanently ending a nuclear weapons program in Iran.”
Reuters reported Tuesday that “Iran denied it had begun discussions on its nuclear program at the talks, mediated by Qatar and Pakistan, and said it had not agreed to invite back International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.”
Tehran would not allow the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog agency, anywhere close to facilities linked to its nuclear weapons program. Many of these sites were targets of recent U.S. and Israeli strikes. “Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Tuesday Iranian officials had not held a meeting with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in Switzerland and had no plans for the U.N. nuclear watchdog to inspect Iran’s damaged nuclear facilities,” the news agency added.
President Donald Trump slammed the Iranian regime on Tuesday after it backtracked on what he insisted was a full agreement to the “highest level” of nuclear inspections.
“Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest level Nuclear inspections long into the future,” he posted on Truth Social. “If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations!”
Meanwhile, Tehran expects to receive billions from the U.S. without offering concessions in the current negotiations. “Iran said $12 billion of its frozen funds were set to be released as part of ongoing talks with the US,” Bloomberg reported.
President Trump insists that the U.S. will have full control over the unfrozen funds and they “will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American Farmers.”
Tehran, the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, will gain an additional $8–9 billion over the next two months after the U.S. waived oil sanctions. “The U.S. has issued a sweeping rollback of sanctions on Iranian oil,” CNBC reported Tuesday. “The license could unlock a floating inventory of around 67 million barrels of Iranian crude stranded in the Gulf, handing Iran a potential financial windfall of $8 billion to $9 billion according to Miad Maleki, a former Treasury sanctions official and now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.”
Even before reaching a U.S. deal, Iran has begun carving up the Middle East. Tehran announced that it is working on a deal to “share” the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, an arrangement that could enable the regime to extort ships and oil tankers passing through the waterway.
“Iran and Oman will study the costs to be charged for services provided in administering the Strait of Hormuz, the two countries said Tuesday, insisting they held sovereignty over the waterway,” the France24 TV channel reported Tuesday. “Tehran has repeatedly said it plans to charge what it calls maritime service fees for crossing the strait, as opposed to tolls, a plan fiercely opposed by the United States.”
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