US partially lifts Iran oil sanctions amid ‘encouraging’ talks, mediated by Pakistan/Qatar

The United States temporarily lifted oil sanctions against Iran on Monday and announced that Tehran had agreed to invite United Nations inspectors back to Iran’s nuclear sites, as it sought to cast the latest Pakistan/Qatar-mediated U.S.-Iran negotiations as a positive step toward a lasting peace agreement, The New York Times reported on its website

NEW YORK, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Jun, 2026) The United States temporarily lifted oil sanctions against Iran on Monday and announced that Tehran had agreed to invite United Nations inspectors back to Iran’s nuclear sites, as it sought to cast the latest Pakistan/Qatar-mediated U.S.-Iran negotiations as a positive step toward a lasting peace agreement, The New York Times reported on its website.

Speaking in Switzerland, where the first round of talks ended early Monday, Vice President JD Vance declared the negotiations a “very good foundation” for a final deal to end the war the United States and Israel began in February.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iranian officials have not yet immediately publicly responded to Vance’s comments.

Iran began limiting inspections of its nuclear facilities after President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 deal — which he as recently as April called “one of the Worst Deals ever” — and all but ended them last year after some of the sites were hit by U.S. and Israeli attacks. Iran has long insisted its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes.

After pulling out of the 2015 deal, Trump also reimposed sanctions on Iran’s oil industry to cut off Tehran’s economic lifeline. But on Monday, the Treasury Department issued a 60-day license allowing the production, delivery and sale of Iranian oil as part of the preliminary deal that the United States and Iran signed last week.

The leaders of the delegations — Vance and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament — were leaving after the marathon negotiating session that began on Sunday, mediated by Pakistani and Qatari officials. The mediators said Monday that the initial talks had ended with “encouraging progress.”

Vance described new lines of communication established to de-escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon.

Those two issues have complicated the delicate cease-fire between the United States and Iran.

“This is a work in progress,” Vance said. The new process in Lebanon, he added, would help “ensure it doesn’t spiral out of control in the future.”

Vance outlined a proposal for potentially unfreezing Iranian assets at a later date, a core demand of Tehran in the negotiations. Iran’s central bank governor said earlier that “necessary memoranda were signed” to initiate the release of assets, according to an interview published by Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency, but Mr. Vance suggested there was no final agreement on the complex issue.

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Meanwhile, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz increased over the weekend, but remained far below prewar levels, according to marine traffic monitoring firms. Vance insisted on Monday that the strait “is open” to commercial shipping, despite some confusion after Iran claimed on Saturday that it was again closing the waterway over the fighting in Lebanon.

The most difficult issue in the U.S.-Iran talks — what to do about Iran’s nuclear program and stockpile of uranium — has been left for later. So far, Iran has only reiterated its longstanding promise not to develop nuclear weapons, and the country’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said on Sunday that Iran would “never back down” from its right to enrich uranium.

Vice President Vance also praised Pakistan for its skillful diplomacy in mediating between the United States and Iran, as the two countries opened a fresh round of follow-up negotiations in Switzerland after signing an initial peace deal.

His remarks came as he met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir at the Buergenstock resort in Switzerland.

When asked by a journalist about Islamabad’s role, Vance responded simply: “Very good, we love Pakistan.”

The vice president, earlier, hailed PM Shehbaz as a “dear friend of the president’s, dear friend of mine,” and credited his diplomatic efforts directly. “His very careful and skilled negotiations got us to this point,” Vance said.

Vance also reserved special praise for Pakistan’s top military commander, revealing the depth of their recent coordination.

“I have two very, very important people in my life: an Indian and a Pakistani. The Indian is my wife, and the Pakistani is Field Marshal Munir,” Vance joked, referencing his Indian-American spouse.

He added: “I’ve probably talked to Field Marshal Munir more than I’ve talked to anybody else over the last three months. He is, of course, a great military leader, but I think he’s shown himself to be a great diplomat.”

The path to this agreement has been turbulent. The conflict escalated in late February, when the United States and Iran launched coordinated strikes against targets, prompting Tehran’s retaliation against U.S. assets in the Middle East, Israel, and Gulf energy facilities.

Iran also closed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, sending energy markets into a volatile cycle that spiked oil and gas prices and contributed to a global energy crisis.