Iran talks laying foundation for transformed Middle East: Vance

US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that negotiations with Iran had produced agreements on maritime security regional ceasefire enforcement and nuclear inspections describing the talks as the foundation for what could become a truly transformed Middle EastSpeaking to reporters before departing Emmen Air Base in Switzerland Vance said the latest round of diplomacy had delivered tangible progress even as both sides prepared for further technical negotiations in the days ahead He stressed that the Trump administration would continue to judge Tehran by its actions rather than its promisesThis is laying a foundation for what could be a truly transformed Middle East Vance said We havent built the house yet were gonna have to keep on building The Vice President said one of the most significant outcomes was the creation of a mechanism designed to keep shipping lanes open and ensure continued energy flows through the regionThe fundamental thing we got is number one we set up the mechanism to ensure not only the straight support moves are open but will stay open he said We saw we think about 15 million barrels of oil come out Thats one of the reasons why oil is so low right now Obviously that means lower gas prices and gas prices are going to keep coming down Vance also highlighted what he described as a breakthrough on regional securityWe actually set up the right mechanism to ensure the regional ceasefire to manage the inevitable conflicts that will come up he said Were working with our allies from the Israelis to the Gulf Arabs to make sure that sticks and we feel very very good about where that is On the nuclear issue Vance pointed to Irans agreement to allow inspectors into the countryWe have the Iranians allowing weapons inspectors nuclear inspectors into the country for the first time in a long time he said Were obviously going to bolster those inspections that inspection regime to make sure they could never have a nuclear weaponHowever he cautioned that verification remained essential Whether good faith or bad faith you cant trust anybodys worries you have to trust what they actually do Vance said My point is that I trust actions and what the President has asked us to do is verify what theyre doing focus less on what theyre sayingThe Vice President said both the United States and Iran had left negotiating teams in Switzerland to continue working through technical details We continue to make progress on these technical negotiations he said We left a lot of our team the Iranians left a lot of their team at the resort there to keep on workingAnother issue discussed during the talks was the possible release of frozen Iranian funds Vance said Qatar had agreed to help establish an oversight mechanism to ensure the money was used in accordance with conditions set by the negotiationsWe actually asked the Qataris to help us set up the mechanism so that we can ensure that the money goes where we want it to go and they agreed to do that he saidFundamentally that money is not going to be unfrozen unless we continue to see progress and that will obviously be a big part of the negotiation in the days to comeVance also brushed aside suggestions that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had intentionally snubbed him before negotiations beganNo I mean trust me Ive spent a lot of time dealing with the Iranians over the last few months Sometimes I find them extremely confusing as negotiators he said They could be confusing negotiators but we feel like were making progressHe also mocked speculation that the talks were on the verge of collapse after social media reports suggested the Iranian delegation would walk awayWhat I did find kind of funny is that after that initial meeting there was this you know sort of social media firestorm where everybody said the Iranians are going to leave and then we proceeded to talk to them for like the next nine hours he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever