Iran and US make progress on Hormuz despite Trump's explosive threats

Iran's delegation returned from Switzerland having agreed a mechanism to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and maintain the Lebanon ceasefire, as mediators described 18 hours of talks as producing "significant progress".

US Vice President JD Vance said Sunday had been "a very, very good day" before leaving the Alpine country that hosted the talks.

“First, we wanted to build a mechanism for keeping the Strait of Hormuz open — it is open,” Vance told reporters at Bürgenstock on Monday.

“We laid a very good foundation for a successful final deal, the final deal is the house,” he said.

"We haven’t built the house — but we’ve laid a successful foundation to get to a good place for the American people,” Vance concluded.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei confirmed that a safe passage mechanism had been agreed, calling it "important" without elaborating.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, thanking Qatar for its role, said tangible gains had been made and welcomed "the constructive spirit that Washington and Tehran have shown in implementing the memorandum of understanding."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is due in Islamabad on Tuesday for talks with Pakistani officials as part of the ongoing mediation coordination, according to Tehran.

US President Donald Trump complicated the picture by threatening to bomb Iran again, this time over Hezbollah and its refusal to respect a ceasefire with Israel, which has continued its intervention against Tehran's main proxy in the neighbouring country.

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

Trump also reportedly further sparked ire among the Iranian delegation after he told Fox News that Iran "won’t have a country" if it closes Hormuz, adding that the negotiators "won’t even make it back to your f***ing country.”

Ebrahim Azizi, head of Iran's parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, responded on X within hours of the Swiss talks ending.

"You make threats, we take action. The Strait of Hormuz is neither your personal casino nor the backyard of the pirates of the new age; these are Iranian sovereign waters, and the ultimate decision tests with the noble people of Iran and its brave armed forces."

Vance dismissed reports that Trump's words nearly derailed the talks, stating on Monday that the US negotiators told their Iranian counterparts the US president was setting the record straight.

"When you guys engage in what us Millennials might call trash talk, you can’t expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record," Vance said.

Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, claimed the Iranian delegation had secured Iran's inclusion in Lebanon's future security system, under which decisions would involve Iran, the US and the Lebanese government but not Israel.

Neither Washington nor Lebanese officials confirmed the claim. A senior US diplomat told the AP that progress had been made on mechanisms for both Hormuz and the Lebanon ceasefire.

Tehran lauds Iranian team's World Cup draw

As the Swiss talks ran through their eighteenth hour on Sunday night, Iran's football team drew 0-0 with Belgium in Los Angeles, with goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand named player of the match.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi immediately seized on the result, posting an image of Beiranvand surrounded by depictions of children killed in a suspected US missile strike on a school in Minab.

"From the football pitch to the negotiating table and the battlefield, every step we take as Iranians is part of a larger struggle," Araghchi wrote, "defending the honour and dignity of our dear people."

Speaker of Iran's parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted a similar image of Beiranvand and Iran's defence clearing the ball near the goal, writing on X, "This is how we protect our land."

The posts drew immediate pushback on Iranian social media, with users posing questions over the safety and whereabouts of Rashid Mazaheri, a former Iran national team goalkeeper who was arrested days before the war began because of his public criticism of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Beiranvand is a supporter of the Islamic Republic, known for his public support for the Tehran regime during the Israel-Iran conflict in June 2025 and the latest war.

Meanwhile, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War assessed that Iran's Hormuz closure announcement was designed primarily to generate pressure rather than impose an actual blockade.

"The continued passage of ships through the Strait after Iran's announcement shows that the statement was probably issued more to create a psychological effect and send a signal," ISW said.

It added that Tehran was trying to secure funds from the agreement before engaging on nuclear issues, to reduce US leverage in the talks ahead.

"By announcing the closure, Iran is seeking to increase economic pressure on the United States so that Washington forces Israel to halt its operations against Hezbollah and withdraw from Lebanon," it said.