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Iran and the United States canceled on Friday the talks that were scheduled to take place in the small Swiss village of Obbürgen, near Lucerne, to start implementing the peace memorandum signed just two days earlier, as confirmed by the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The break occurred at the last minute when Tehran decided to suspend its participation in direct response to the latest wave of Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
Minutes later, the U.S. vice president JD Vance, who was leading the Washington delegation, canceled his trip to Swiss territory.
The trigger: Israeli attacks in Lebanon
The Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon was the factor that prompted the cancellation.
According to the Lebanese state news agency NNA, at least 18 people have died and another 33 have been injured in airstrikes and artillery attacks in the Nabatiya area, one of the main strongholds of the Shia militia Hezbollah, but also home to thousands of civilians who had begun to return with the hope of a ceasefire.
Israeli forces have advanced up to 10 kilometers along the entire southern Lebanese border, according to the latest map released by the Israel Defense Forces.
The fighting has intensified: at least four Israeli soldiers have lost their lives in recent hours, including the commander of a tank battalion, Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon, 32 years old, who died when a suspected drone or anti-tank missile struck his tank in the town of Kfar Tebnit.
After these casualties were reported, the far-right Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, posted on social media that "all of Lebanon must burn."
The government of Benjamín Netanyahu insists on its right to continue the offensive, a stance that has caused strong disagreements with Donald Trump and the White House.
Tehran, for its part, conditions any dialogue on the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and has reaffirmed that its support for Hezbollah is "unconditional."
The Washington version: "Logistical issues"
The White House provided a different explanation. A spokesperson stated that the U.S. delegation was ready to travel, but that "the logistics of this type of negotiation have never been simple or predictable."
The administration avoided confirming a new date and merely stated that it will inform when there are concrete updates.
This is not the first time that the war in Lebanon has derailed the diplomatic process.
Iran has already suspended negotiations with the U.S. on June 1 due to Israeli attacks, and the agreement was in jeopardy on June 14 following an attack in Beirut.
The agreement that is now at risk
The canceled conversations aimed to implement the 14-point memorandum that Trump digitally signed on June 17 during a gala dinner at the Palace of Versailles, as part of the G7 Summit.
The document, described by Vance as "just a page and a half" and deliberately vague in its technical commitments, opens a window of 60 days to negotiate a final agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.
It also includes a reconstruction fund of 300 billion dollars and the unlocking of at least 12 billion in frozen Iranian funds.
One day before the cancellation, CENTCOM lifted the naval blockade on Iran, which had been imposed on April 13 by order of Trump.
The Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, had already warned that future negotiations would take place "on the basis of distrust, past failures to fulfill commitments, and previous experiences."
Key figures in Trump's environment - Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe - have expressed reservations about whether Tehran will fulfill its nuclear commitments, adding extra pressure to a 60-day diplomatic window that is already facing its first crisis.
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