Iran must rein in Hezbollah under new deconfliction process, Vance says
US Vice President JD Vance said in Buergenstock, Switzerland, on Monday that the United States had set up a deconfliction mechanism aimed at preventing clashes involving Israel and Hezbollah from spiraling into a wider conflict.
He said protecting both Israel’s security and Lebanon’s sovereignty would require coordination with the Lebanese army and pressure on Iran to rein in Hezbollah.
“Israel's security is protected. And that's going to require some coordination with the Lebanese armed forces. And also it's going to require the Iranians to rein in Hezbollah. That's all the sort of things that we were talking about yesterday,” he said.
Vance said Israel and other countries in the region had a right to self-defense, but added that Washington wanted military responses to take place alongside talks aimed at de-escalation.
He said the mechanism was established around 4 p.m. local time on Sunday and had already helped produce what he described as the calmest 24-hour period in Lebanon in recent days.
Vance said Israel had made clear it had no territorial ambitions in southern Lebanon and that its presence there was driven by concerns over Hezbollah fire into Israel.
Iran agreed to invite IAEA inspectors back into the country, US Vice President JD Vance said on Monday after the first round of US-Iran talks concluded.
Vance called the move “a major milestone” and said it was “the first step” toward ending what he described as Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
He said the talks had also set up technical negotiations involving US, Iranian, Qatari and Pakistani teams, which would continue in Buergenstock and over the coming days and weeks.
“We laid a very good foundation for a successful final deal,” Vance said. “The final deal is the house. We set the foundation, we haven’t built the house.”
Vance said the talks had also produced coordination mechanisms aimed at keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, de-mining the waterway and preventing regional ceasefire violations from escalating.
China welcomed the launch of follow-up talks between Iran and the United States on a memorandum of understanding and supported efforts conducive to peace in the Middle East, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday.
“Maintaining and implementing the memorandum of understanding will help consolidate the hard-won ceasefire and open new prospects for Iran-US relations,” Wang told Ghadir Nezami, Iran’s senior security official, during a meeting in India, according to a statement from China’s foreign ministry.
Wang said China backed Iran in safeguarding its sovereignty and dignity and improving ties with Persian Gulf and regional countries, adding that Beijing was willing to provide assistance “in its own way” to help restore regional peace.
Hossein Shariatmadari, the hardline editor of Kayhan newspaper, said on Monday that Iran’s negotiating team should leave the talks to humiliate US President Donald Trump.
“The minimum response to Trump’s threats is to humiliate this characterless element and leave the negotiating table,” he wrote.
He added that even if talks continued, Iran should not let Trump go without revenge for the blood of slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.
A dead Caspian seal lies on a beach along the Caspian Sea coast.
The repeated deaths of Caspian seals along the shores of the Caspian Sea have become a persistent environmental concern, with experts still unable to identify a definitive cause despite years of investigations, according to a report by Iran's Shargh newspaper.
What was once an occasional discovery has turned into a recurring pattern. Seal carcasses continue to wash ashore across the Caspian coastline, prompting authorities and environmental organizations to record the losses while searching for answers.
Researchers increasingly view the deaths as the result of multiple pressures rather than a single cause. Climate change, declining water levels, industrial pollution, overfishing, accidental entanglement in fishing nets and the possible spread of disease have all been cited as contributing factors.
The Caspian seal (Pusa caspica) is the only marine mammal native to the Caspian Sea and one of the region's most distinctive species. Found nowhere else in the world, it plays a key role in maintaining ecological balance by feeding on small fish and other aquatic organisms.
Environmental experts regard the species as an indicator of the sea's overall health. A decline in seal numbers can point to broader problems, including pollution, shrinking fish stocks and disruption of the marine food chain.
The species is also part of the shared natural heritage of the five countries bordering the Caspian Sea — Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its survival is closely linked to the environmental future of a region where millions depend on fishing, tourism and coastal industries.
Deaths across the Caspian
The crisis attracted international attention in 2022 when around 2,500 dead Caspian seals were found along Russia's Dagestan coast in one of the largest recorded die-offs involving the species.
Scientists examined a range of possible causes, including disease outbreaks, oxygen depletion, environmental contamination and natural gas emissions from the seabed. No definitive explanation emerged.
File photo shows a Caspian seal resting on a sandy shoreline.
The event was not isolated. Hundreds of dead seals had previously been recorded along the Dagestan coastline, suggesting that large-scale mortality events are becoming a recurring feature of the Caspian ecosystem.
Researchers also point to climate change as a growing threat. Caspian seals rely on ice in the northern part of the sea to breed and raise their pups. Rising temperatures and shrinking winter ice cover have reduced the availability of suitable breeding habitat, placing additional pressure on an already vulnerable population.
Population in decline
Conservation estimates indicate the Caspian seal population has fallen by more than 90 percent over the past century. Once numbering above one million animals, the population is now believed to have dropped below 100,000.
The species is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, reflecting concerns about its long-term survival.
Amir Sayad Shirazi, director of Iran's Caspian Seal Conservation Center, told Shargh that pollution remains one of the most significant threats facing the species.
Because the Caspian Sea is shared by five countries and functions as a closed body of water, environmental damage in one area can affect the wider ecosystem, he said.
Russia halted commercial hunting of Caspian seals in 2020, eliminating one source of mortality that had previously resulted in thousands of deaths annually. Yet unexplained die-offs continue to undermine conservation efforts.
For conservationists, the fate of the seal increasingly mirrors the condition of the sea itself, making its survival a test of whether the region can protect one of its most distinctive ecosystems.
Sellers of Iranian crude to China have cut prices after Iran began shipping millions of barrels out of Hormuz following an interim peace deal with the United States, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
Spot cargoes of Iranian Light crude for July arrival were being offered at discounts of $2.50 to $5 a barrel to Brent benchmark prices, the report said, citing people directly involved in the trade.
That compared with a discount of about $1 a barrel before the deal.
Iran has increased the amount of crude it openly sends through the Strait of Hormuz to the highest level since the war began, as regional shipping activity picked up while Tehran and Washington worked toward a lasting peace deal, Bloomberg said in a separate report.
