What JD Vance is saying about war in Iran ahead of traveling to Switzerland for peace talks

(ASSOCIATED PRESS) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Sunday there was an opportunity to “turn over a new leaf” with Iran as the sides launched talks aimed at building out the interim deal to end the war in Iran reached by the two sides last week. Vance is holding talks with Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, at a Swiss mountainside resort near Lake Lucerne. Mediators from Pakistan and Qatar were also in the room for the direct engagement. The U.S. is looking to get Iran locked into negotiations over its nuclear program amid concerns it may be used for military purposes, which Iran denies. Vance also wants to push Tehran to commit to keeping open the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway through which about a fifth of world traded oil passes. But the on-again, off-again conflict in Lebanon, between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants, continues to threaten to derail the effort for the U.S. to win concessions from Tehran on its nuclear program and keep the Strait of Hormuz open. “The question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together? Can we turn over a new leaf?” Vance said in brief comments as the talks, dubbed the “Lake Lucerne Summit,” got underway. “Can we change relations in the Middle East permanently, or do we go back to doing things the old way, which is not our preference, but is certainly very much something that can happen.”