Tehran said the Lake Lucerne follow-on technical round wrapped on June 23 with negotiating groups agreed and a $12 billion frozen-funds release finalised, even as Iranian officials publicly disputed US claims that IAEA inspectors would return to bombed nuclear sites.
Iran announced on Tuesday that the technical phase of its negotiations with the United States in Switzerland had concluded, with both sides agreeing to a structured framework of working groups to carry the talks toward a final accord within 60 days, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA as relayed by Business Recorder and Al Jazeera’s live coverage.
Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the parties had decided to establish four working groups — on sanctions termination, nuclear affairs, reconstruction and economic development, and monitoring and implementation — alongside a “contact point” among the parties and a unit to prevent escalation in Lebanon, per The Express Tribune. Iran’s UN ambassador Ali Bahreini separately framed the immediate structure more narrowly, telling reporters that groups were being formed to negotiate sanctions removal and nuclear matters, according to Al Jazeera.
The day’s most concrete deliverable was financial. Iranian chief negotiator and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said an agreement to release $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets had been finalised in Switzerland, a figure echoed by The Times of Israel and Pajhwok Afghan News. Tehran pushed back on US characterisations of how the money would be used: Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the funds would be “employed with absolute liberty,” rejecting suggestions they were earmarked for US agricultural purchases, Al Jazeera reported.
The technical round was overshadowed by a widening public dispute over nuclear monitoring. Iran said on June 23 that it had neither met IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in Switzerland nor scheduled any visit by the UN watchdog to facilities damaged in the US-Israeli strikes, per The Times of Israel and France 24. Those statements directly cut against US Vice President JD Vance, who had told reporters in Switzerland that Tehran agreed to invite inspectors back as a “major milestone” toward denuclearisation — a contradiction first flagged on June 22 by CNN and hardened by Iranian officials on June 23.
President Masoud Pezeshkian sought to manage the friction, saying “statements outside the agreed text do not help advance the negotiations,” as quoted by The Express Tribune. Iran also escalated its position on the Strait of Hormuz, with Ghalibaf quoted saying the waterway “will never return to its pre-war conditions and will be administered by the Islamic Republic of Iran, in accordance with international law,” per The Express Tribune and France 24.
With the technical phase declared finished, the working groups now become the vehicle for closing a final deal inside the 60-day window agreed at Lake Lucerne. The competing narratives on nuclear inspections and Hormuz sovereignty point to the gaps that those groups will have to bridge.
