BURGENSTOCK, Switzerland — US Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that “great progress” had been made in talks with Iran over the past few hours and expressed optimism that further advances could be achieved as negotiations got underway in Switzerland.“We’ve already made great progress over just the last few hours, and I expect it will make additional progress” in the coming hours, Vance said before the opening of talks in Burgenstock.Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, together with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, opened the talks aimed at implementing the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed on June 17.Vance said the objective of the negotiations is to “transform” the Middle East.He added that if Iran is willing to abandon its ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons for the long term, the United States would be prepared to fundamentally transform its relationship with Tehran.“That is certainly our goal,” he said.“This is a historic meeting. Never before outside of Islamabad, and here, so outside the last few months, never before have the Iranian and American leadership met at such a high level,” Vance added.Asked about continued Israeli ceasefire violations in Lebanon, the US vice president said there had been significant progress in maintaining the truce.“We’ve seen great progress over the last couple of days in ensuring that the ceasefire holds in Lebanon,” he said.“These things are always a little bit messy if you go back to how much was happening three months ago, and compare it to three weeks ago,” Vance added.
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