A U.S. delegation led by Vice President J.D. Vance and special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff began talks with representatives of Iran’s government in Switzerland on Sunday, the 114th day of the conflict.
A CBS News/YouGov poll of 2,519 adults in the U.S. released on Sunday showed that 78 percent of Americans think that the U.S. should end the conflict now.
One source of disagreement heading into the negotiations was Israel’s ongoing occupation and bombing of Lebanon in violation of the agreement. The first article of the of the 60-day interim peace agreement designed to lead to a final agreement to end the Iran War—signed Wednesday by President Donald Trump and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian—conditions an end to the conflict on the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon” and “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.”
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, citing sources close to Iran’s negotiating team, reported Sunday that Iran plans to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed as long as Israeli attacks continue in Lebanon. Iran had on Saturday morning announced the reclosure of the Strait of Hormuz, citing Israel’s continued bombing of Lebanon as violations of U.S. ceasefire commitments.
Israel continued to bomb and occupy southern Lebanon on Sunday, with Lebanon’s Health Ministry raising the total death toll from Israeli strikes to 4,106 people killed since March 2.
Both Trump and Vance had this past week separately criticized Israel for its ongoing bombing of Lebanon. But on Sunday, Trump directed his criticism toward Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group founded in 1982 in response to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon now allied with Iran, posting to Truth Social that “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” adding that “if they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
Global energy prices, which spiked after the war began, have fallen in recent days, though not to pre-war levels. The price of Brent Crude oil was $80.60 per barrel on Sunday while AAA reported the national average price of regular gas at $3.94.
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