A sign for the Lake Lucerne Summit at the Bürgenstock during a meeting between U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for high-level talks aimed at advancing a deal to end the Middle East conflict, in Obbuergen, Switzerland, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP)
Iran says it skipped technical talks with the United States on Sunday after the two sides exchanged military strikes, but a U.S. official countered that negotiations to end the war are ongoing.
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The negotiations between the two nations were set to take place near Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne and were aimed at finalizing a deal within 60 days as part of the memorandum of understanding, an agreement to end the war that was signed less than two weeks ago.
“Nothing has been cancelled,” a U.S. official said in a statement to NOTUS. “Technical talks regarding the implementation of MoU are on track for the coming days as planned, and deconfliction channels are up and running after the Lake Lucerne Summit.”
Both sides paused attacks Sunday, the U.S. official said later.
“Technical talks are slated to continue on all areas of the MOU. Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely,” the U.S. official said.
The U.S. and Iran plan to meet Tuesday in Qatar’s capital to work out the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, a senior U.S. official told Axios on Sunday.
An Iranian official told state media Sunday the talks were off, saying assurances in the agreement have not been fulfilled, including America’s commitment to release billions of dollars worth of Iran’s money that was frozen under U.S. sanctions.
“For example, one of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds. If there is no access then this condition has not been fulfilled,” Mehdi Fazaeli, a member of the Office of Preservation and Publication of the Works of Iran’s Supreme Leader, told Iranian state TV on Sunday, according to a translation from Reuters.
The weekend attacks tested the delicate ceasefire put in place on June 17.
The U.S. launched strikes Friday in response to Iran’s “one-way attack drone” strike on a Singaporean-owned cargo ship, according to U.S. officials. The strikes targeted Iranian weapon storage sites and radar surveillance installations near the Strait of Hormuz.
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“The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement Friday.
Iran launched a second drone attack that struck a Panama-flagged ship, prompting another round of U.S. strikes Saturday. Iran responded by targeting U.S. military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain — though the strikes were mostly intercepted and no casualties were reported.
President Donald Trump called the drone attacks on the ships a “foolish violation” of the ceasefire agreement and threatened to wipe out the Iranian government if the strikes did not end.
“There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social.
Vice President JD Vance, who traveled to Switzerland for initial negotiations, issued a strong warning for Iran.
“If they [Iran] have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence,” Vance wrote Friday on X.
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This story has been updated with an additional comment from the U.S. official.
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