VP: Iran thought Lebanon was part of truce due to ‘legitimate misunderstanding,’ but we never agreed to that; Israelis offered ‘to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon’

US Vice President JD Vance says a “legitimate misunderstanding” led Iran to believe that Lebanon was covered by the two-week ceasefire announced yesterday, even though Washington never agreed to such terms.

“This comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, [but] we never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case,” Vance tells reporters before boarding a plane back to the US from Hungary.

“What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran, and… on America’s allies — both Israel and the Gulf Arab states,” Vance claims.

“That said, the Israelis… offered… to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful,” he adds.

Israel has given no public indication that it is prepared to restrain its operations in Lebanon, and in fact, launched the largest wave of strikes on Wednesday since the war began.

“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart… over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them… That’s ultimately their choice,” Vance says.

In addition to Iran, Pakistan — which helped broker the ceasefire — has also insisted that the truce covers Lebanon, while the US and Israel have argued otherwise.

He didn’t specify whether the administration would be willing to see Iran continue enriching uranium for civilian purposes but said, “The more that they’re willing to give us, I think the more they’re going to get things out of this negotiation.”

Vance was asked to respond to a claim by Iran’s parliament speaker that the US has violated three components of Tehran’s 10-point proposal for a longterm agreement, which US President Donald Trump said would serve as the basis for upcoming negotiations to make the ceasefire permanent.

“If he’s frustrated about three issues, that actually means that there’s a lot of agreement,” Vance says.

He also questioned whether Ghalibaf had misunderstood elements. “I actually wonder how good he is at understanding English, because there are things that he said that, frankly, didn’t make sense” in the context of the negotiations.