Vance says US made 'very good progress' on Israel-Hezbollah 'deconfliction mechanism' during Iran talks

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Monday that “very good progress” was made on a “deconfliction mechanism” between Israel and Hezbollah during talks with Iran in Burgenstock yesterday.

“We want a regional ceasefire, right? We want Hezbollah to stop firing at our friends in Israel. We want Israelis to be able to live in peace. We also want to make sure that, you know, when things happen, they don’t spiral into a broader escalation,” he said during a press conference in Switzerland.

He said the goal of the mechanism is to allow for direct communication when incidents occur between Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah and other regional partners, since “there really hasn’t been a mechanism to have those discussions until basically when we set that up" on Sunday.

Vance stressed that “Israel and every other nation in the region has the right of self-defense, but we want to make sure that everybody has that right of self-defense in the background where we’re talking about how to de-escalate these conflicts rather than spiraling out of control.”

Asked by a reporter if the U.S. wants Israel to withdraw from its southern Lebanon "security zone," Vance said deconfliction efforts are ongoing and added: "We want Israel’s security to be protected, and we also want Lebanon’s sovereignty to be protected. And this is going to be an ongoing conversation."

"The Israelis have been very clear they do not have territorial intentions on south Lebanon. The reason they feel they have to be there is because they’re worried about Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon firing into Israel,” he said.

He added that getting to a place “where Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty is protected” and “Israel’s security is protected” is going to require coordination with the Lebanese Army as well as “the Iranians to rein in Hezbollah.”